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UK Scientists Create a Three-Parent Embryo
Troll-Under-D'Bridge writes "The BBC reports that British scientists have manufactured embryos containing genetic material from a man and two women. Under the procedure developed by scientists from Newcastle University, the nuclei from a father's sperm and a mother's egg are transferred into a second woman's egg 'from which the nucleus had been removed, but which retained its mitochondria.' The research, which may 'help mothers with rare genetic disorders have healthy children,' used embryos left over from in-vitro fertilization treatment."
So Heather REALLY HAS two mommies!
Scientists have found a way to ruin the meaning of "threesome". Is this the true cost of progress?
The research, which may 'help mothers with rare genetic disorders have healthy children...'
I'd say that's a pretty good reason for this research.
I have severe moral issues with people who think that morality is anything more than an arbitrary human construct largely defined by unconscious mental process shaped by evolution, thus making axiology a faux endeavor, you insensitive clod!
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
She did contribute DNA, its Mitochondrial DNA (MtDNA). Mitochondrial DNA is unique from the rest of the genome and is not in the nucleus. It is found in the mitochondria.
All MtDNA in humans is transmitted from the mother because it is her mitochondria in the egg that will propagate into each cell as cells divide in development.
So she has contributed genes.
MtDNA from egg donor.
Maternal chromosomal DNA is from the nuclear DNA donor.
Paternal chromosomal DNA is from the sperm.
I prefer the old fashioned way of combining the genetic material of a man and two women personally.
Depends on what you mean by "characteristics." At the very base level, it contributes to every other cell in the offspring's body (as the mitochondria themselves are replicated during a separate mitosis stage within the "host" cell).
At another level, the mitochondria set the rate at which the cell creates energy which directly affects the ability of the cell to regenerate, reproduce and function which can itself cause differences in gene expression.
Did you mean to say "I don't like this." ?
Or you could just adopt. Wouldn't be much different would it? You're not having the baby yourself, and you're getting it out of another man's sperm and another woman's egg. The only difference is your mitochondria is present. All I can see it doing is allowing for there to be a relation between the parent and the child genetically, but how much is this going to change things? On top of that, I'm going to guess that this process will be really expensive, so who would want to pay for that sort of thing? I just can't see the point.
There's a common moral squeamishness about deciding, for the greater financial good, who gets to precreate. It's a squeamishness I happen to share. If you're going to refuse to pay for their vanity kids, why pay for those of infertile couples? Why pay for a guy to store a sperm sample when he has a vascectomy? I guess it would take something like the US healthcare system to turn a free-market economy into a cold-war totalitarian nightmare.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
As a parent who has gone through 7 years of infertility, I can say that I find religious objections to new fertility treatments unconscionable. The Church's belief that people who suffer from infertility should "accept the will of god" to be disgusting and akin to telling a cancer patient that they should do the same. The grief suffered by a couple with infertility diseases is as great of that of someone dying of a terminal illness. Imagine if someone stormed into your house, kidnapped your children, and you are powerless to do anything about it. Infertility evokes the same kind of emotions. Forbidding treatment on religious grounds adds insult to injury. In the end, we resolved our infertility by adopting.
There may be no "I" in team, but there's also no "F" in way.
Like it or not, there is a strong (instinctually enforced) tendency to want to pass on your own genes to the next generation. We are basically built at a basic level to want to live, eat, and reproduce. For many people that means having kids that are genetically their own.
There's also the desire to have a kid that recognizes you as their parent. That can happen just fine with adopted children, but typically only if they're very, very young when adopted. Competition for adopting babies is pretty fierce.
Also, adopting requires a LOT of justification and the like. There's a ton of paperwork determining whether or not you financially qualify, whether or not you're an appropriate match (ie, some people with certain health problems aren't allowed to adopt), or other factors (such as if the person is single. A single woman has a hell of a time adopting a child. A single man can pretty much forget about it). Having your own biological children simplifies this, as it takes a mountain of good cause and paperwork to remove a child from their parent. Pretty much the exact opposite of adoption.
All in all, while a noble goal, the reality is that adoption simply isn't for everyone.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Mitochondrial DNA is also child's DNA...
And since it greatly affects methabolism, it's one of the most important traits of an organism. Certainly can affect one of the traits you list, height.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Not only that, but since the mitochondrial DNA only codes for a small amount of the respiration chain -- cytochrome C oxidase, ATP synthase, and some of the core proteins of the NADH reductase complex, in most eukaryotic cells -- while the nuclear DNA codes for much of the rest of the proteins in the respiration chain, you need to have an excellent match between proteins that come from two different chunks of DNA. There's no guarantee that'll happen, and there's evidence that one of the reasons cloning has such a poor success rate and so many cloned animals die young of strange damage, is precisely because of poor matching between mitochondrial and nuclear dna products, leading to oxidative damage throughout the cell and early cell death because of leakage from the poorly-functioning respiration chain.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
I applaud any science achievement, for whatever reason. However every-time I read a story like this, and octomom, etc the first thing that comes to mind is adoption. Yea I was adopted so that contributes to my feelings on the subject, but the whole "Need" to have YOUR kid, well it just seems ridiculous to me