It really is exciting news -the first UK baby created with the DNA from three people has been born in the UK after doctors performed a pioneering IVF procedure that aims to prevent children from inheriting incurable diseases
The procedure is called mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT) and is designed to prevent the transmission of certain genetic diseases from a mother to her child.
MRT involves replacing the faulty mitochondrial DNA of a mother’s egg with healthy mitochondrial DNA from a donor egg, and then fertilising the egg with the father’s sperm. This means that the resulting embryo has DNA from three people – the mother, the father, and the donor.
The donor who provides the healthy mitochondria is not considered a “third parent” because they do not contribute any nuclear DNA to the child. The resulting child would still have the physical and genetic characteristics of their parents, just with healthy mitochondria.
The technique has been hailed as a major breakthrough in reproductive medicine.
We turned to Dr James Hopkisson, Medical Director at TFP Fertility UK, and one of the UK’s leading IVF and fertility specialists for his thoughts:
“This is exciting and welcome news. Those families that have benefited from this technology must be very happy, as mitochondrial disease has no cure and is a challenging illness.
“There have been comments that those children born following the use of this technology will need close follow up over their lifetime to ensure that there are no ongoing health issues related to the technique or the disease that it has treated.
“It is not something TFP Fertility UK currently offers, however we welcome any developments that help people achieve their long desire to create families. We all at TFP embrace evidence-based practice that helps increase the treatment success rates.”
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) said “less than five” babies have been born in the UK this way, but no further details have been released, to protect their identity. It goes without saying that we send the children and their family all the love in the world.
