Children are born with the DNA of three parents. We first heard about the practice in 2016, but it’s becoming more common now, with the British Fertilization and Embryology Society revealing that many babies are born using this new method in the UK.

It’s all about the mitochondria. To be more specific, faulty mitochondria.

Since mitochondria provide energy to cells, defective mitochondria can lead to many problems. United Print It reports that one in every 200 children in the UK is born with a mitochondrial disorder each year. Some of these disorders, such as brain damage and heart failure, are fatal within hours of birth, the report said. BBC. Others, such as blindness or muscle wasting, can have lifelong effects. This is where triple DNA comes into play.

Another woman using this mitochondrial donation procedure donates mitochondria to replace what she inherited from her mother. Healthy female organelles help create IVF embryos without diseased mitochondria. And since mitochondria make up just over 0.1 percent of the baby’s total DNA, but contain DNA containing about 37 genes, it introduces a third person’s DNA into the mix.

The concept is not entirely new. The procedure was first introduced by the Newcastle Fertility Center and was first performed by a group of American doctors in 2016. The procedure was carried out in Mexico due to regulations in the United States prohibiting it from being done in-country.

Guard It found that the US and Mexico sample is far from the only case of such a DNA matching procedure, but that this baby is the first of “fewer than five” babies born in the UK.

“MDT offers families with severe inherited mitochondrial diseases the opportunity to have a healthy baby,” he said. Guard Peter Thompson, CEO of HFEA. “It’s still early days for MDT, and HFEA continues to review clinical and scientific developments.”

Dagan Wells, professor of reproductive genetics at Oxford University, said: Guard, this clinical experience is encouraging, but it is still too early to know the safety of the procedure and whether it is completely free of mitochondrial disease in infants. Long-term follow-up of newborn babies is important.

Joanna Poulton, professor of mitochondrial genetics at the University of Oxford, wrote that having a baby with the new procedure is a big step forward, but the long-term effects are unknown and the procedure could potentially cause effects such as cell damage. It will require a “radical restructuring”.

“This story is the beginning of a new treatment with enormous potential for good,” he wrote. “However, unknowns in this new and controversial technology need to be tightly regulated and tested.” Source