Breakthrough for three-parent babies as UK experts declare IVF technique is safe

The procedure could pave the way for the world’s first child conceived from the cells of three humans to be attempted on the NHS (File photo)
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A pioneering technique to create babies from three parents is safe, UK scientists revealed today.

The procedure could pave the way for the world’s first child conceived from the cells of three humans to be attempted on the NHS within the next couple of years.

The controversial process, an adapted form of IVF, is being explored as a way of reducing the risk of babies being born with mitochondrial disease, which can cause devastating progressive illnesses in children and adolescents and can prove fatal in extreme cases. There are 10,000 patients with the disease in the UK.

Today’s announcement confirms that the process is “not unsafe” and is likely to lead to normal pregnancies. It replaces a small amount of faulty DNA in a mother’s egg with healthy DNA from a second woman, so that the baby would inherit genes from two mothers and one father.

Liz Curtis, who lost her baby Lily to mitochondrial disease

The research found there were only tiny risks that genetic flaws would be passed from mother to child. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority will now convene an expert panel and it could make a recommendation by the end of the year on whether to award a licence to the team to allow it to carry out the procedure in patients.

The law was changed last year to allow clinics to apply for “three parent” baby licences.

Couples with mitochondrial disease are lining up to be the first to try to have a disease-free baby. Up to 150 women a year could benefit.

Professor Doug Turnbull, co-author of the research paper, said: “Unfortunately this takes a lot of time, but people are very keen to move forward with it — to at least have this as a reproductive option.”

Colleague Professor Mary Herbert said: “We believe that the procedure does not have a detrimental effect on early embryo development.”

Mitochondria create a cell’s “energy supply” that enables the heart and brain to function. People with faulty mitochondria can suffer from a range of conditions from epilepsy to heart failure. There is no cure.

Scientists at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Mitochondrial Disease at Newcastle University, aided by the Francis Crick Institute in London and Oxford University, tested more than 500 healthy donated eggs that were implanted with the nucleus of the “patient’s” fertilised egg that had been stripped of harmful mitochondria. The embryos were kept alive for six days.

The donor egg, makes up less than one per cent of the new embryo. This would enable couples affected by mitochondrial disease to use the IVF technique — known as “early pronuclear transfer” — to try to have healthy children.

Professor Herbert, senior author of the study, said: “Having overcome significant technical and biological challenges, we are optimistic that the technique we have developed will offer affected women the possibility of reducing the risk of transmitting mitochondrial DNA disease to their children.”

Liz Curtis, who founded the Lily Foundation charity to support families with the disease after she lost her daughter Lily to it at eight months, said: “It’s really amazing to think that soon parents could have the opportunity to extend their family using this technique.”

The research was published in the journal Nature.

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