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British MPs Approve 3-Parent Babies
An anonymous reader writes: A vote of 382-128 in the UK's House of Commons gave approval for a procedure that allows the creation of babies using DNA from three parents. If the measure passes the House of Lords and gets licensed by the fertility regulator, the UK would be the first country to allow such genetic engineering. The medical procedure was designed to help conception when genetic diseases could be passed through mitochondrial DNA. A child inherits mitochondria only from its mother, and these mitochondria have their own DNA, which doesn't affect things like the child's appearance.
The purpose of the procedure is to replace the mother's mitochondria, and that can happen in two different ways. In one method, doctors take eggs from the mother and from a donor, removing the nucleus of both. The mother's nucleus is then implanted in the donor's egg, which can then be fertilized by the father's sperm. The other method is similar, but both eggs are fertilized before the nucleus swap takes place.
There has been lively debate about this issue, with critics raising ethical concerns and questioning the procedure's success rate. They also bring up the slippery slope argument that this will lead to further genetic modification of children. Proponents point out that less than 0.1% of the child's DNA will come from the donor, and it won't affect anything other than the child's health.
The purpose of the procedure is to replace the mother's mitochondria, and that can happen in two different ways. In one method, doctors take eggs from the mother and from a donor, removing the nucleus of both. The mother's nucleus is then implanted in the donor's egg, which can then be fertilized by the father's sperm. The other method is similar, but both eggs are fertilized before the nucleus swap takes place.
There has been lively debate about this issue, with critics raising ethical concerns and questioning the procedure's success rate. They also bring up the slippery slope argument that this will lead to further genetic modification of children. Proponents point out that less than 0.1% of the child's DNA will come from the donor, and it won't affect anything other than the child's health.
Since this story has been around for a couple of days I would have hoped slashdot would know better and have avoided the sensationalist headline. Here's what the experts say.
The biggest problem is that this has been described as three-parent IVF. In fact it is 2.001-parent IVF," Gillian Lockwood, a reproductive ethicist, told the BBC. "Less than a tenth of one per cent of the genome is actually going to be affected. It is not part of what makes us genetically who we are. It doesn't affect height, eye colour, intelligence, musicality. It simply allows the batteries to work properly."
Virtually anywhere with some variant on a 'legal apparatus you'd expect from a developing or developed nation' will have some equivalent of 'Markedly novel medical procedures and drugs need some sort of approval before use' rules in place. The difficulty of getting approval, and level of enforcement, vary sharply.
You can typically get creative with techniques and drugs that are already approved for some other purpose; but bringing a procedure or drug into the fold in the first place typically requires either that it be grandfathered in through age, or go through some sort of approval.
I may be wrong here but I think it was the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. If I've read it right it essentially bans labwork with embryos without a license for a very specific task, and to date they wouldn't have granted a license for this kind of procedure.
It doesn't even require an embryo, just an unfertilized egg cell from another woman.
Even your siblings are likely to have difference mtDNA.
Not as different as your neighbour, or your father, but different.
mtDNA is copied by an ancient strategy that we stole along with the organelles themselves. It is a bit half-arsed and screws up a LOT more often than the copier used on the rest of our DNA. Which is why we've got adult women whose kids die from mtDNA faults - their mtDNA worked OK, but the copies they're giving to the kids are busted due to a transcription error. We can't fix that (yet) but we can throw it away and give them a replacement.
you don't have to match donors because mitochindria haven't mutated in about a billion years. They're functionally and structurally identical now to what they were when eukaryotes first slupped their way across the mud pools. Mitochondria either work or they don't, it's a binary condition since mitochondria have but a single function: to convert chemical potential to usable forms of energy. As such, mitichondrial DNA is exclusively passed along the maternal line - because a: it doesn't need to pool multiple genotypes, and b: it makes possible monoecious or asexual reproduction (plant cloning and bee colonies). This is part of the reason why you hear about the search for "Mitochondrial Eve", the mother of mothers of the Human species.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel