Wow! First baby with three parents alive and healthy

A boy born in April with three genetic parents is the first infant born using a new technique that incorporates DNA from two women and one man

 but has raised thorny ethical questions and is not allowed in the United States.

The boy was born in Mexico to Jordanian parents who tapped researchers from the New Hope Fertility Center in New York to help them conceive a healthy child, according to New Scientist.

The boy’s mother has genes for a condition called Leigh syndrome, a neurological condition that killed her two prior children, according to the report. But because those genes are carried in her cells’ mitochondria, the scientists were able to swap in healthy mitochondrial DNA from another woman, and now the boy appears to be healthy at 5 months old.

In this case, the boy was delivered after a full nine-month pregnancy, the New Scientist reported. About 1 percent of the boy’s mitochondria includes the faulty genes for the syndrome, which scientists believe should not cause problems unless they replicate faster than his healthy mitochondria, according to the report.

The approach is supposed to eliminate the risk of inheriting sometimes deadly mutations in the DNA of the mitochondria, the cell’s energy-producing structures. But a new study corroborates what some exploring this so-called mitochondrial replacement therapy have long suspected: that the undesirable DNA still manages to sneak into the donor egg during the procedure, and mitochondria containing it could even grow to outnumber the power plants with healthy DNA






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www.newscientist.com