First Child Born With DNA From 3 Parents
In what experts are calling a “revolutionary” medical event, the first baby with DNA from three parents has been born using a controversial technique meant to help people who carry genes for fatal rare diseases.
The baby was born on April 6, 2016, and he appears healthy.
The procedure was done by U.S. fertility specialists working in Mexico, where there are no laws prohibiting such methods. His mother carries a genetic mutation for Leigh syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that usually becomes apparent in the first year of life and is generally fatal.
She had four miscarriages and two children who died from Leigh syndrome, one at age six and one at eight months. Symptoms of Leigh disease usually progress rapidly and lead to generalized weakness, a lack of muscle tone and a buildup of lactic acid in the body, which can cause respiratory and kidney problems.
The procedure, called spindle nuclear transfer, involves removing the healthy nucleus from one of the mother’s eggs and transferring it to a donor egg which had had its nucleus removed. The resulting egg – with nuclear DNA from the mother and mitochondrial DNA from a donor – was then fertilized with the father’s sperm.
Safety concerns remain due to a failed attempt in the 1990s, when doctors injected mitochondrial DNA from a donor into another woman’s egg, along with sperm from her partner. Some of the babies went on to develop genetic disorders, and the technique was banned in the US.
Playing God?
Some churches, both Protestant and Catholic, are opposed to the procedure on religious and ethical grounds. There are also fears that we could soon be looking at a world that wants designer babies. Eye color, skin color, and gender are all simply DNA options, what options will you pick to give your child the best opportunities in life?
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I think the procedure is probably expensive so not too many ppl could afford it. Everyone who wants a baby wants a healthy baby. I just feel creepy thinking some babies are experimental. Too much like the gruesome Nazi Dr. Mengele. On the other hand if genetic diseases could be excised in a humane way that would be ideal. Peeps gonna do whatever they want and get away with it if they’re rich and connected is how I feel about it. I’m glad I’m poor & didn’t have kids!
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I’m all for removing diseases but a little concerned about a world where everyone may look the same.
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Brave New World is a dystopian novel written in 1931about just this sort of thing. Have you heard of it or read it? It’s by English author Aldous Huxley, and published in 1932. There are several movie versions of it too.
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Never seen it but I will look for it, thanks.
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What was that, that Dr. Ian Malcom said?
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Life will find a way?
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Yep, even the smallest, most infectious life, will always find a way. Who knows if they will be able to defeat a super bug?
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