In the News

Fertility doctors are today expected to get the go ahead to create the UK’s first “three-parent baby” in 2017, if the Government’s fertility regulator approves treatment. The procedure, called mitochondrial replacement therapy, is given to women who are in danger of passing on debilitating and sometimes fatal genetic conditions to their children. And if the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority pass the recommendations, it will allow clinics to apply for licenses.

Many more three-parent babies will soon be on their way. A clinic in Mexico is planning to use the technique in 20 pregnancies in the first half of 2017, according to its medical director Alejandro Chavez-Badiola.
The first baby to be born using such a technique to prevent passing on genetic disease was born this year. Test results yet to be published have revealed that the baby boy is perfectly healthy, New Scientist has been exclusively told.

British scientists on Wednesday approved the use of so-called “three-parent baby” fertility treatments, paving the way for the country to become the first in the world to officially introduce the procedures.

An independent panel of experts tasked with reviewing the safety of mitochondrial gene therapy said the practice should be “cautiously adopted” to prevent certain genetic diseases from being passed on to future generations.

The United Kingdom may soon become the first country to explicitly permit the birth of children from embryos modified to contain three people’s DNA. At the same time, new research backs up concerns that such a treatment — which aims to erase diseases transmitted by the DNA found in cellular structures called mitochondria — may not always be 100% effective.

A healthy baby boy was born on April 6 in Mexico that has some in the medical community rejoicing and others concerned.The divide is due to the method of conception: a three-parent technique called “spindle nuclear transfer,” the details of which were published Tuesday in the journal Fertility and Sterility.

Controversial ‘three-parent baby’ treatments could be introduced in the UK as early as next spring.

This comes after the treatments have received the green light from an independent panel of experts today. Scientists cleared away remaining safety hurdles to recommend ‘cautious adoption’ of mitochondrial replacement therapy for devastating inherited diseases.

Seventeen children conceived through ooplasmic transplantation have all matured with regular health and cognitive abilities, according to a study.

A New York fertility specialist, who said he successfully carried out a “three-parent” in vitro fertilization (IVF) technique resulting in a baby boy, called the procedure a “revolutionary approach in human reproduction.”

John Zhang, medical director of New Hope Fertility Center in New York, spearheaded the technique roughly five months ago with a Jordanian couple at a clinic in Mexico.

A baby boy conceived using a controversial technique that mixes DNA from three people seems to be healthy, according to a hotly anticipated talk by the leader of the team that created the child. John Zhang, a physician at New Hope Fertility Clinic in New York City, offered few other details during his presentation at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s annual meeting on 19 October.

A New York fertility specialist, who said he successfully carried out a “three-parent” in vitro fertilization (IVF) technique resulting in a baby boy, called the procedure a “revolutionary approach in human reproduction.”

A healthy boy is the first to be born using a new technique that uses DNA from three people, reports Jessica Hamzelou.

IT’S a boy! A 5-month-old baby is the first to be born using a new technique that incorporates DNA from three people. “This is great news and a huge deal,” says Dusko Ilic at King’s College London, who wasn’t involved in the work. “It’s revolutionary.

A reported world-first in fertility therapy — a baby boy conceived using a controversial technique that mixes DNA from three people — has made headlines across the world. But with no way of verifying the claim because the specialists behind the procedure will not release data until October, some researchers are questioning the ethics of the procedure. In particular, they ask why the US-based team behind the operation chose to carry it out in Mexico, a country with less-clear oversight of human-embryo modification than, for instance, the United Kingdom or the United States.