Mitochondrial donation treatment aims to prevent children from inheriting incurable diseases.
On an aim to prevent children from inheriting incurable diseases from their parents, the United Kingdom has successfully created a baby after taking the DNA from three different people. Doctors of UK performed a groundbreaking IVF procedure to bring this baby into the world. The technique used to take DNA from 3 people is called mitochondrial donation treatment (MDT). It uses tissue from the eggs of female donors. After that the embryo is created through IVF and that is how they are free from inheriting the harmful mutations from their mothers. The nucleus which is taken from the mother is implanted into a donor egg. The donor egg’s nuclei are removed but its healthy mitochondrial DNA is retained.
This is not the world’s first baby created through the process of MDT. The first baby was created in 2016 in Mexico.
The Aim Is To Reduce Genetically Passed Incurable Diseases In Children
The aim of this process is to create life by eliminating all the harmful mutations that the mothers might be carrying. In normal circumstances, these genes get passed on to the children but through MDT, this can be prevented. In normal births, mitochondrial DNA contains power for the cell. After this process was successfully conducted, people have been using the phrase, ‘three parent babies’ to describe it. However, researchers state that this phrase is incorrect and misleading because more than 98.8 per cent of the child’s DNA comes from two people only i.e. the mother and the father.
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The procedure received its approval from the UK parliament in the year 2015. In addition to that, requests for its use were considered by the regulatory body called the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA).
What Are Experts From The UK Saying About MDT?
Experts of the Francis Crick Research Institute are saying that it is yet to be found whether or not the technique of mitochondrial replacement therapy worked at a practical level or not. It yet to be seen whether, the babies are free of mitochondrial disease, and whether there is any risk of them developing problems later in life.
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