The UK looks set to become the first country to allow the creation of babies using DNA from three people, after the government backed the IVF technique.

It will produce draft regulations later this year and the procedure could be offered within two years.

Experts say three-person IVF could eliminate debilitating and potentially fatal mitochondrial diseases that are passed on from mother to child.

Opponents say it is unethical and could set the UK on a "slippery slope".

They also argue that affected couples could adopt or use egg donors instead.

Mitochondria are the tiny, biological "power stations" that give the body energy. They are passed from a mother, through the egg, to her child.

Defective mitochondria affect one in every 6,500 babies. This can leave them starved of energy, resulting in muscle weakness, blindness, heart failure and death in the most extreme cases.

Research suggests that using mitochondria from a donor egg can prevent the diseases.

It is envisaged that up to 10 couples a year would benefit from the treatment.

However, it would result in babies having DNA from two parents and a tiny amount from a third donor as the mitochondria themselves have their own DNA.

'Clearly sensitive'
Earlier this year, a public consultation by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) concluded there was "general support" for the idea and that there was no evidence that the advanced form of IVF was unsafe.

The chief medical officer for England, Prof Dame Sally Davies, said: "Scientists have developed ground-breaking new procedures which could stop these disease being passed on, bringing hope to many families seeking to prevent their future children inheriting them.

"It's only right that we look to introduce this life-saving treatment as soon as we can."

She said there were "clearly some sensitive issues here" but said she was "personally very comfortable" with altering mitochondria.

Scientists have devised two techniques that allow them to take the genetic information from the mother and place it into the egg of a donor with healthy mitochondria

Method 1; Embryo Repair
1) Two eggs are fertilised with sperm, creating an embryo from the intended parents and another from the donors 2) The pronuclei, which contain genetic information, are removed from both embryos but only the parents' is kept 3) A healthy embryo is created by adding the parents' pronuclei to the donor embryo, which is finally implanted into the womb

Method 2; Egg Repair
1) Eggs from a mother with damaged mitochondria and a donor with healthy mitochondria are collected 2) The majority of the genetic material is removed from both eggs 3) The mother's genetic material is inserted into the donor egg, which can be fertilised by sperm

The result is a baby with genetic information from three people.

They would have more than 20,000 genes from their parents and 37 mitochondrial genes from a donor.

It is a change that would have ramifications through the generations as scientists would be altering human genetic inheritance.

Objections to the procedure have been raised ever since it was first mooted.

Dr David King, the director of Human Genetics Alert, said: "These techniques are unnecessary and unsafe and were in fact rejected by the majority of consultation responses.

'Designer baby'
"It is a disaster that the decision to cross the line that will eventually lead to a eugenic designer baby market should be taken on the basis of an utterly biased and inadequate consultation."

One of the main concerns raised in the HFEA's public consultation was of a "slippery slope" which could lead to other forms of genetic modification.

Draft regulations will be produced this year with a final version expected to be debated and voted on in Parliament during 2014.

Newcastle University is pioneering one of the techniques that could be used for three-person IVF.

Prof Doug Turnbull, the director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Research at the university, said he was "delighted".


He said: "This is excellent news for families with mitochondrial disease.

"This will give women who carry these diseased genes more reproductive choice and the opportunity to have children free of mitochondrial disease. I am very grateful to all those who have supported this work."

The fine details of the regulations are still uncertain, yet it is expected to be for only the most severe cases.

It is also likely that children would have no right to know who the egg donor was and that any children resulting from the procedure would be monitored closely for the rest of their lives.

Sir John Tooke, the president of the Academy of Medical Sciences, said: "Introducing regulations now will ensure that there is no avoidable delay in these treatments reaching affected families once there is sufficient evidence of safety and efficacy.

"It is also a positive step towards ensuring the UK remains at the forefront of cutting-edge research in this area."

 Rented Tritium wrote:
Other than the few diseases they can cause, does mitochondrial DNA even have a real impact on who you are as an individual?.

 Mr Hyena wrote:
The bigger concern is the animal/human hybrid embryos.

 Mr Hyena wrote:
Of course, but at that point, why not just get rid of ethics as a whole?

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Mr Hyena wrote:
The bigger concern is the animal/human hybrid embryos.

Concern for its AWESOMENESS, I'm sure you meant?

Ocelot-human hybrid. Called it first, called it here.

 Mr Hyena wrote:
Never seen the movie Splice?

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
Dude, does this :

Spoiler:

looks like this?

Spoiler:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Mitochondrial DNA has no effect on you as a person, it isn't part of the DNA in the nucleus that determines your phenotype but part of the DNA in the cell that runs operations like respiration. Mitochondrial DNA is only passed down the female line (because the cell of a fertilised embryo comes from the female) meaning that the DNA of the third person is lost if they have boys.

JWhex wrote:

To me, the troubling ethical issue is wrapped up in the decision to have a child that requires an unproven medical intervention that may result in poor health for the child. .

 Palindrome wrote:

JWhex wrote:

To me, the troubling ethical issue is wrapped up in the decision to have a child that requires an unproven medical intervention that may result in poor health for the child. .

Mitochondrial disease can be quite literally crippling and leaves sufferers with a very poor standard of life (and often leads to an early death). The small risk of deleterious consequences is more than outweighted by the benefits. There has also been succesful animal studies, and in vitro human studies, on this procedure.

DNA will not be manipulated, mitochondial DNA and nuclear DNA are completely distinct and are located in discrete organelles within the cell. All that happens is that the nucleus of a fertilised egg is transfered to a donor egg that has had its nucleus removed but which still has the rest of its cellular machinery intact.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
That argument could be used against all IVF. And I can see validity in that, medical science should surely prioritise the living rather than help people have children when that isn't essential or a moral right to have your own children. I say that as someone who has had to face fertility issues and accept how unlikely it is to have children with my current partner.

I suppose the question is how much medicine should prioritise quality of life, and how much having your own children does improve your quality of life. People generally seem to prefer the idea of having their own children, how much medicine should facilitate that could be debated, but the use of hybrid embryos is a tangent of a bigger issue.

 d-usa wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Mitochondrial DNA has no effect on you as a person, it isn't part of the DNA in the nucleus that determines your phenotype but part of the DNA in the cell that runs operations like respiration. Mitochondrial DNA is only passed down the female line (because the cell of a fertilised embryo comes from the female) meaning that the DNA of the third person is lost if they have boys.

I think just a slight mistake there.

If they have boys, the donors Mitochondrial DNA is still present in that child. He still has mitochondria after all. Now if that boy has a child, then the donor mitochondrial DNA leaves the gene pool for that family and the child will have the mitochondrial DNA of whoevers egg he fertilized.

If they have a daughter then her children will have the mitochondrial DNA of the donor and it will continue to be passed down to any female children.

Not that this has any real bearing on the story though.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I think we might be talking at crossed purposes, I don't disagree with anything you said.

One point though, we're coming at this from different cultures. In the US all healthcare is private so I suppose people can pay for what they want. In the UK we have nationalised healthcare and when you use that, there is the question of value for money. You can always go private, but if you want treatment on the NHS then it has to be justified. In that sense, fertility treatment could be pushed aside in favour of treating the living. As it happens, there is fertility treatment on the NHS but it isn't unlimited. When I posted the above, I was thinking that if you refuse hybrid embryos on the NHS then the argument would likely apply to all fertility treatments. I don't have an issue with fertility treatment being free, just that I can see logic in the argument against it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Mitochondrial DNA has no effect on you as a person, it isn't part of the DNA in the nucleus that determines your phenotype but part of the DNA in the cell that runs operations like respiration. Mitochondrial DNA is only passed down the female line (because the cell of a fertilised embryo comes from the female) meaning that the DNA of the third person is lost if they have boys.

I think just a slight mistake there.

If they have boys, the donors Mitochondrial DNA is still present in that child. He still has mitochondria after all. Now if that boy has a child, then the donor mitochondrial DNA leaves the gene pool for that family and the child will have the mitochondrial DNA of whoevers egg he fertilized.

If they have a daughter then her children will have the mitochondrial DNA of the donor and it will continue to be passed down to any female children.

Not that this has any real bearing on the story though.

You are correct, I said that the boys wouldn't have the third-party mitochondrial DNA when in fact they would but couldn't pass it on. But I was drunk when I wrote that so I did ok IMO.

JWhex wrote:
Guess which choice poses zero relative risk to the infant?