by In the UK, eight healthy babies were born with the help of experimental technology that DNA used by three people to help mothers avoid their children, to transfer devastating rare diseases, the researchers reported on Wednesday.
Most DNA can be found in the core of our cells, and it is this genetic material – some of mom, some of Dad – that makes us what we are. But there are also some DNA outside of the cell nucleus in structures that are referred to as mitochondria. Dangerous mutations there can cause a number of diseases in children that can lead to muscle weakness, seizures, developmental delays, severe organ failure and death.
Testing during the in -vitro fertilization process can usually determine whether these mutations are available. But in rare cases it is not clear.
Researchers have developed a technique that tried to avoid the problem by using the healthy mitochondria from a donation. In 2023, they reported that the first babies were born with this method in which scientists take genetic material from the egg or embryo of the mother, which is then transferred to a donation or an embryo that has healthy mitochondria, but the rest of his keynight was removed.
The latest research “an important milestone is marked,” said Dr. ZEV Williams, who heads the Fertility Center at Columbia University and was not involved in the work. “The expansion of reproduction options … will enable more couples to pursue safe and healthy pregnancies.”
With this method, the Embryo DNA means three people – from the mother’s egg, the father’s sperm and mitochondria of the donor – and it required a change in the British Act 2016 to approve it. It is also allowed in Australia, but not in many other countries, including the United States
Experts from British Newcastle University and Monash University in Australia reported on Wednesday at the New England Journal of Medicine that they carried out the new technology in fertilized embryos of 22 patients, which led to eight babies that seem to be free of mitochondria. A woman is still pregnant.
One of the eight-born babies had slightly higher than expected an ad-nitochondria, said Robin Lovell-Badge, a scientist of stem cells and development genetics at the Francis Crick Institute, who was not involved in research. He said that it was still not considered a high level to cause diseases, but should be monitored in the development of the baby.
Dr. Andy Greenfield, an expert in reproductive health at the University of Oxford, described the work as a “triumph of scientific innovation”, and said that the method for the exchange of mitochondria would only be used for a small number of women, for the other ways to avoid the transmission of genetic diseases, such as testing embryos in an early stage.
Lovell-Badge said that the amount of DNA of the donor was insignificant and found that a resulting child would not have any properties from the woman that the healthy mitochondria donated. The genetic material from the donated egg makes up less than 1% of the baby born after this technique.
“If you had a bone marrow transplant from a donor … you will have a lot more DNA from another person,” he said.
In Great Britain, every couple who is looking for a baby born by donated mitochondria must be approved by the country’s fertility authority. From this month, 35 patients were authorized to undergo technology.
Critics have previously expressed concerns and warns that it is impossible to know the effects of this type of new techniques on future generations.
“The Pronuclear transfer for clinical use in the USA is currently not permitted, mainly to regulatory restrictions on techniques that lead to inheritable changes to the embryo,” said Williams from Columbia in an e -mail. “Whether this will change remains uncertain and depends on the development of scientific, ethical and political discussions.”
For about a decade, the congress has included provisions in annual financing calculations that prohibit the Food and Drug Administration to accept applications for clinical research in which techniques are involved.
In countries where technology is allowed, the lawyers could say that some families could offer a promising alternative.
Liz Curtis, whose daughter Lily died of a mitochondrial disease in 2006, is now working with other families affected by them. She said it was devastating to tell that there is no treatment for her eight -month -old baby and that death was inevitable.
She said the diagnosis “turned our world upside down, and yet nobody could tell us a lot about what it was or how it would affect Lily.” Curtis later founded the Lily Foundation on behalf of her daughter to raise awareness and support the research of the disease, including the latest work at Newcastle University.
“It is super exciting for families who don’t have much hope in their lives,” said Curtis.
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