Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

UK Government Proposes Rules To Allow 'Three-Parent Embryos'

Posted by Unknown on from the meet-my-nine-parents dept.

sciencehabit writes "The U.K. government today issued proposed regulations that would allow researchers to try a new and controversial in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedure in patients. The technique could allow women who are carriers of mitochondrial disease to have healthy, genetically related children. But it also transfers DNA from one egg or embryo into another, a form of genetic alteration that could be passed on to future generations. Altering the genes of human egg cells or embryos in IVF procedures is now forbidden in the United Kingdom."

2 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How DARE you propose NOT to allow this? by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You'd have a point if mitochondrial DNA did all that shit. Thing is, mitochondrial DNA doesn't so any of that shit.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. Re:Stranger than fiction by JazzHarper · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Under the proposal, the donor of the egg would have no parental rights. That is logical, since mtDNA carries very little information, compared to nuclear DNA.

    There is no genetic modification involved so there is no "intellectual property" vested in the DNA of the offspring. From that standpoint, this is no different from conventional in-vitro fertilization.