Eight children in the UK were born using a new three-person in vitro fertilization (IVF) technique to avoid passing devastating genetic diseases to the children, scientists from Newcastle University reported on Wednesday.
The technique, which is banned in the US, transfers pieces from inside the mother’s fertilized egg — its nucleus, plus the nucleus of the father’s sperm — into a healthy egg provided by an anonymous donor.
The procedure prevents the transfer of mutated genes from inside the mother’s mitochondria — the cells’ energy factories — that could cause incurable and potentially fatal disorders.
Photo: Newcastle Fertility Centre, Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust via AP
Mutations in mitochondrial DNA can affect multiple organs, particularly those that require high energy, such as the brain, liver, heart, muscles and kidneys.
One of the eight children is two years old, two are between ages one and two, and five are infants.
All were healthy at birth, with blood tests showing no or low levels of mitochondrial gene mutations, the scientists reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
All have made normal developmental progress, they said.
The results “are the culmination of decades of work,” not just on the scientific and technical challenges, but also in ethical inquiry, public and patient engagement, law-making, drafting and execution of regulations, and establishing a system for monitoring and caring for the mothers and infants, said University of Oxford reproductive medicine specialist Andy Greenfield, who was not involved in the research.
The researchers’ “treasure trove of data” is likely to be the starting point of new avenues of investigation, Greenfield said in a statement.
Often during IVF screening procedures, doctors can identify some low-risk eggs with few mitochondrial gene mutations that are suitable for implantation, but sometimes all of the eggs’ mitochondrial DNA carries mutations.
In those cases, using the new technique, the British doctors first fertilize the mother’s egg with the father’s sperm. Then they remove the fertilized egg’s “pronuclei” — the nuclei of the egg and the sperm, which carry the DNA instructions from both parents for the baby’s development, survival and reproduction.
Next, they transfer the egg and sperm nuclei into a donated fertilized egg that has had its pronuclei removed.
The donor egg would begin to divide and develop with its healthy mitochondria and the nuclear DNA from the mother’s egg and the father’s sperm.
The process, detailed in a second paper in the journal, “essentially replaces the faulty mitochondrial DNA [mtDNA] with healthy mtDNA from the donor,” senior researcher Mary Herbert, professor of reproductive biology at Newcastle, told a news conference.
The procedure was tested in 22 women whose babies were likely to inherit such genes. In addition to the eight women who delivered the children described in the report, another one of the 22 is currently pregnant.
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