UK baby born with DNA from three people: What is the ‘three-parent’ technique?

The UK has its first baby created from the DNA of three people. Let’s take a closer look at this technique known as the mitochondria donation treatment (MDT), how it works, and why it is used: As per The Guardian, the technique was developed by doctors at the UK’s Newcastle Fertility Centre. The technique is employed to allow women with faulty mitochondria – which power human cells — to conceive babies without passing on defects. People inherit all their mitochondria from their mother, so harmful mutations in the “batteries” can affect all of the children a woman has. These defects can result in diseases such as muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, heart problems and intellectual disabilities. The process unfolds thus – the father’s sperm is used to fertilise eggs from both the mother and the female donor’s eggs. Nuclear genetic material from the couple’s fertilised egg then replaces the material from the female donor’s egg. The embryo is thus born with chromosomes from both parents but also has the female donor’s healthy mitochondria.

This embryo is then implanted in the mother’s womb, as per The Guardian.

The genetic material from the donated egg comprises less than 1 per cent of the child’s genetics. The three ‘three-parent’ baby moniker, though eye-catching is thus slightly misleading, according to Science in The News website. [caption id=“attachment_12576892” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Representational image. Pixabay[/caption] For affected women, natural conception is often a gamble. Some babies might be born healthy because they inherit only a tiny proportion of the mutated mitochondria. But others may inherit far more and develop severe, progressive and often fatal diseases. Around one in 200 children in Britain is born with a mitochondrial disorder. Britain’s Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority said fewer than five babies have been born this way, but no further details have been released to protect the families’ identities. The UK was the first country in the world to adopt legislation in 2015 specifically regulating such methods, which help prevent women with faulty mitochondria.

“Mitochondrial donation treatment offers families with severe inherited mitochondrial illness the possibility of a healthy child,” the UK fertility regulator said in a statement Wednesday. The agency said it was still “early days” and was hopeful the scientists involved, at Newcastle University, would soon publish details of the treatment. Britain requires that every woman undergoing the treatment be approved by its fertility regulator, which says there must be no other options available for the family to avoid passing on genetic disease. To date, 32 patients have been given the green light to receive such treatment. Many critics oppose the artificial reproduction techniques, arguing that there are other ways for people to avoid passing on diseases to their children, like egg donation or screening tests, and that the experimental methods have not yet proven to be safe. Others warn that tweaking the genetic code this way could be a slippery slope that eventually leads to designer babies, where parents not only aim to avoid inherited diseases but also seek taller, stronger, smarter or better-looking children. According to The Guardian, we still don’t have a clear picture about how mitochondria work and this could have unintended consequences. Some are also concerned that mutant mitochondria may accidentally be transferred during the process, as per Science In The News. If this happens, some think such children might develop diseases or even pass them on to their children.

Others say much remains unknown.

As Dr Jonathan Tilly, chair of the department of biology at Northeastern University, told Time Magazine, “We bring the mom and dad’s genetic material together, but then we introduce a different dance partner.” “Is there a compatibility issue that we haven’t seen yet, or that we haven’t considered in enough detail yet? And if there is, what does that mean for the long-term fate of the cell or the fate of a newly conceived baby?” Robin Lovell-Badge, a stem cell expert at the Francis Crick Institute, said it would be critical to monitor the babies’ future development. “It will be interesting to know how well the (mitochondrial donation) technique worked at a practical level, whether the babies are free of mitochondrial disease and whether there is any risk of them developing problems later in life,” he said in a statement. Scientists in Europe published research earlier this year that showed in some cases, the small number of abnormal mitochondria that are inevitably carried over from the mother’s egg to the donor’s can reproduce when the baby is in the uterus, which could ultimately lead to a genetic disease. Lovell-Badge said the reasons for such problems were not yet understood and that researchers would need to develop methods to reduce the risk. Oher countries have used this technique as well. Doctors in the US announced the birth of the world’s first baby using the mitochondria donation technique in 2016, after the treatment was conducted in Mexico. As per The Guardian, such a baby was born in Greece in 2019. According to Time Magazine, a 32-year-old woman delivered a six-pound healthy baby boy. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.