Three-person baby: Baby born with DNA from three people is world’s first
- 8 years ago
MEXICO — A team from the New Hope Fertility Center in New York has created the world’s first three-person baby.
New Scientist reports that a 5-month old baby boy was conceived via a new method that uses his birth parents’ DNA, along with that of a second woman.
The technique was used to avoid passing on his Jordanian mother’s mitochondrial genes, which carried the DNA associated with Leigh Syndrome. The fatal genetic disorder, which affects the brain, muscles, and nerves of developing infants, had already led to the deaths of the couple’s two previous children.
New Hope doctors, led by Dr. John Zhang, used a procedure called the spindle nuclear transfer, which involved taking out the nucleus of the donor egg and replacing it with the mother’s, according to the research published in Fertility and Sterility.
The resulting egg, a hybrid containing the mother’s nuclear DNA and the donor’s mitochondrial DNA is then fertilized by the father’s sperm.
Five embryos were created using the procedure, but only one developed normally. It was implanted in the mother’s uterus, and the baby was born nine months later.
Dr. Zhang later tested the boy’s genes, and found that less than 1 percent carry his mother’s mutation — too low to cause any problems.
The controversial method has not been approved in the U.S., so the team had to travel to Mexico to perform it there. A similar procedure is legally approved in the UK, though it involves fertilizing both eggs before swapping the nucleus.
New Scientist reports that a 5-month old baby boy was conceived via a new method that uses his birth parents’ DNA, along with that of a second woman.
The technique was used to avoid passing on his Jordanian mother’s mitochondrial genes, which carried the DNA associated with Leigh Syndrome. The fatal genetic disorder, which affects the brain, muscles, and nerves of developing infants, had already led to the deaths of the couple’s two previous children.
New Hope doctors, led by Dr. John Zhang, used a procedure called the spindle nuclear transfer, which involved taking out the nucleus of the donor egg and replacing it with the mother’s, according to the research published in Fertility and Sterility.
The resulting egg, a hybrid containing the mother’s nuclear DNA and the donor’s mitochondrial DNA is then fertilized by the father’s sperm.
Five embryos were created using the procedure, but only one developed normally. It was implanted in the mother’s uterus, and the baby was born nine months later.
Dr. Zhang later tested the boy’s genes, and found that less than 1 percent carry his mother’s mutation — too low to cause any problems.
The controversial method has not been approved in the U.S., so the team had to travel to Mexico to perform it there. A similar procedure is legally approved in the UK, though it involves fertilizing both eggs before swapping the nucleus.