The UK’s first ‘three-parent’ baby born after IVF procedure | Science and technology news

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The procedure aims to prevent a mother from passing on the defective mitochondrial gene to her child and involves giving a woman an IVF child with DNA from three individuals.

By Samuel Osborne, news reporter @samuelosborne93

Tuesday, May 9, 2023, 21:57 PM, UK

The first child of three genetic parents was born in the UK.

To prevent genetic diseases, doctors create a “baby of three” using a technique known as mitochondrial donation therapy (MDT).

The procedure aims to prevent a mother from passing on defective genes in the mitochondria — the tiny power stations in cells that supply energy — to her child, and involves a woman giving her child by artificial insemination with DNA from three individuals.

The baby was given DNA from the mother and father, which determines key characteristics such as personality and eye color.

They were also given a tiny amount of mitochondrial DNA provided by the “third parent”.

Newcastle Fertility Center gained its first license for the controversial treatment in 2017, after MPs and peers voted to allow it in 2015 under the Human Embryo Fertilization Act.

The human fertilization and embryology (HFEA) regulator said fewer than five births had been registered as a result of the mitochondrial transfer procedure.

Giving an accurate number, she said, “could lead to the identification of the person to whom the HFEA owes a duty of confidentiality”. The data was accurate through April 20.

The Guardian was the first to report on the birth of MDT after submitting a Freedom of Information request to the HFEA. The newspaper said it understood the pandemic had prevented some donors from moving forward and affected other couples hoping to undergo treatment.

Image: Newcastle Fertility Clinic was the first to be licensed to treat a ‘third parent’ baby

The Newcastle Clinic procedure is performed by effectively transferring the genetic material that encodes a child’s identity into a donor egg that has had its DNA removed.

This results in an embryo that contains healthy mitochondria from the donor and DNA from the baby’s mother and father.

Mitochondria contain only about 0.1% of a person’s DNA which is always inherited from the mother.

It can be catastrophic if mitochondrial DNA goes wrong – leading to a wide range of fatal conditions including heart problems, liver failure, brain disorders, blindness and muscular dystrophy.

Such mitochondrial diseases are incurable and affect 1 in 6,500 children worldwide.

The treatment is designed to prevent defective genes from being passed on to future generations, which could lead to eradicating such terrible diseases forever.

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Peter Thompson, chief executive of HFEA, said: “Mitochondrial donation therapy offers families with serious mitochondrial genetic disease the possibility of having a healthy child.

“The UK was the first country in the world to allow the treatment of mitochondrial donation within a regulatory environment.

“It is still early days for mitochondrial donation therapy and the HFEA continues to review clinical and scientific developments.”

The world’s first baby created from DNA from three parents was born in Mexico in 2016 with the help of a team in New York.

The mother had genes for Leigh syndrome, a fatal disorder that affects the development of the nervous system.

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