The Guardian’s science editor, Ian Sample, has disclosed in an exclusive that the first UK baby made with DNA from three individuals was born after medics completed a revolutionary IVF operation aimed at preventing children from inheriting terminal disorders.
The technique, known as mitochondrial donation treatment (MDT), uses tissue from the eggs of healthy female donors to create IVF embryos that are free of harmful mutations that their mothers carry and are likely to pass on to their children.
Because the embryos combine the biological parents’ sperm and egg with tiny battery-like structures called mitochondria from the donor’s egg, the developing kid contains DNA from both parents as well as a little amount of genetic material – around 37 genes – from the donor.
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The method has given rise to the term “three-parent babies,” despite the fact that more than 99.8% of the DNA in the kids comes from the mother and father.
The United Kingdom is not the first country to employ the MDT approach. After treating a Jordanian woman with mitochondrial abnormalities that produce a deadly illness known as Leigh syndrome, a US doctor announced the world’s first MDT birth in 2016.
Progress with MDT prompted parliament to modify the law to allow the surgery in 2015. Newcastle Fertility clinic became the first and only national clinic licenced to conduct it two years later, with the first cases authorised in 2018. The UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) grants approval on a case-by-case basis and has approved at least 30 cases.
