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World's First Baby Born With New '3 Parent' Technique (newscientist.com)
A five-month-old baby boy has been revealed as the first kid in the world with three biological parents, reports New Scientist. The baby boy was apparently conceived by a technique that has been legally approved in the UK, and lets parents with genetic disorders have healthy babies. Though, the method used in this particular cases was slightly different from one legalized in the UK. From the report: Zhang (a doctor) took a different approach, called spindle nuclear transfer. He removed the nucleus from one of the mother's eggs and inserted it into a donor egg that had had its own nucleus removed. The resulting egg -- with nuclear DNA from the mother and mitochondrial DNA from a donor -- was then fertilised with the father's sperm. Zhang's team used this approach to create five embryos, only one of which developed normally. This embryo was implanted in the mother and the child was born nine months later. "It's exciting news," says Bert Smeets at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The team will describe the findings at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine's Scientific Congress in Salt Lake City in October.
>> "It's exciting news," says Bert Smeets
I REALLY don't get how making more humans (even wierd hybrids) is meant to be somehow self-evidently always a good thing.
Hardly fair to call the baby malicious names even if you disapprove of this medical technique. If you must; bash the doctor and the parents, but the baby is innocent in this.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
There is more demand for adopting babies than babies available. It can be a challenge.
Now older kids... they get the short end of the stick, very few people want to adopt an older child; part of that is that they often come with emotional and mental challenges due to being orphans and passed around without a real home for much of their childhood... and not getting adopted adds to that.
If someone wants a baby, it may be easier to get medical help than adopt. You could say they should adopt one of the older children available for adoption instead... and that would be nice but some parent's aren't willing to adopt a troubled older child rather than start with a clean slate who they can mould into their own child.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Congratulations, Ms Singh, your newborn child has been engineered to be superior in every way. And yes, 'Khan' is an excellent name.
[Insert pithy quote here]
I think you kind of missed the point, which is that this lets them pass on most of their genes without passing on their hereditary disorder....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
There is more demand for adopting babies than babies available.
Indeed. My wife and I looked into adoption, and we were told it would be a long arduous and expensive process, and in the end we would probably be rejected because of my age (50+). So we got a dog instead.
In Debbie's case, all of Dallas.
Hardly fair to call the baby malicious names even if you disapprove of this medical technique.
The same thing happened back in 1978, when Louise Brown was born. Today everyone accepts IVF as routine. This time will be the same: The first baby is on the front page, the 2nd baby is mentioned on page 6, and the 3rd baby is ignored.
Yes, a lot of work went in, but ultimately, all of the *significant* genetic material came from two parents. Passing on your mitochondrial DNA doesn't do anything to really shape your offspring (unless your mitochondrial DNA is just *really* messed up). Now if the donor egg somehow had defective Mitocondrial DNA, ok, this is at least somewhat useful.
But pretending this offspring has three equally biological parents is disingenuous.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Stop being selfish (needing your "damaged" genes to propagate)
The damaged mitochondrial DNA was replaced completely - and will propagate the replaced DNA as well.
There are plenty of children that need to be adopted.
A baby is a child, but a child is not a baby.
Raise one of them, and accept they won't be propagating your genes but they will be propagating your values.
Depending on the age of the child, there's no guarantee you can change/undo what's already been done.
Just increase immigration to compensate and better outcomes for all.
Maybe, or it could me a worse outcome for all. I won't talk about race, race has been more or less scientifically proven to be a not a real thing. While there may be some clustering toward the lower and upper bounds of the normal range for various characteristics in some populations its not big enough to be relevant.
Culture on the other hand is. Europe has had a huge problem with 'multiculturalism' you can't allow just any immigrants to show up and form ghettos. Its curcial to recognize and value ones one culture and probably ones national identity. I am all for legal immigration but the people who come here (speaking as an American) so do so because they want to be Americans, not ${former nationality}-Americans, no ${former continent}-Americans, or ${ethnic-population}-Americans but just plain simple Americans. I am all for freedom of religion and am okay with whatever they want to do inside their homes, or at their meeting place on ${Weekday} or if they don't want to ${food item} etc. In general though they need to join the rest of secular society, see the same movies, talk about the same sports, eat most of the same foods, date people no from their orign group, etc. Its simply wrong to place equal value on other cultures. Western civilization is superior its brought like to a dark world that other cultures frankly have not made lasting contributions to in terms of thought and ideas since before the fall of Rome.
'We' as individuals are not better than 'them' but 'we' as a culture certainly are. If 'they' want to immigrate grate as long as their desire is to be like us. If its to come here or to Western Europe just to live in Little-${whatver} but collect a bigger public assistance check than is available back home, no we should not want them and we should not let them come. Recently cultural appropriation has been branded a bad thing. Its not its great thing, imitation is the highest form of flattery! Cultural appropriation is in fact the correct and proper way to value other cultures. You recognize what is best about them and perhaps better than our traditional way and adopt it! That is the melting pot model, we take the best ideas from everywhere and made them our own! Everyone should be welcome who wants to add and integrate. Unfortunately this idea that we have to allow them to instead replace, in the name of respect has taken hold.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Okay, this may be the world's first baby, but there are apparently 30-50 teenagers with three parents.
The girl with three biological parents
The technique was pioneered in the late 1990s, but then the US FDA said "please cut it out", and as far as we know everyone did.
So, yes, the future looks bright for this new baby, given that several dozen other beneficiaries of this technique seem to be doing quite well in their teenage years...
RE: In general though they need to join the rest of secular society, see the same movies, talk about the same sports, eat most of the same foods, date people no from their orign group,
Why do you hate America and its values?
Should we deport all the Amish? Orthodox and Hasidim Jews? Moral majority-style Christians? Mormons? Devout Muslims?
I agree some cultures are better than others, but you have American culture quite wrong.
The things we should share in common are respect for the law, right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, understanding of inalienable rights, and so on. Take some civics classes or something.
The sports and movies and (presumably) TV trash you are talking about is absolutely unnecessary to partake to be a good American. Shame on you, and learn to love what this country is actually about.
ironic captcha; idealism