First UK Baby With DNA From Three People Born After New IVF Procedure (theguardian.com) 33
The first UK baby created with DNA from three people has been born after doctors performed a groundbreaking IVF procedure that aims to prevent children from inheriting incurable diseases. From a report: The technique, known as mitochondrial donation treatment (MDT), uses tissue from the eggs of healthy female donors to create IVF embryos that are free from harmful mutations their mothers carry and are likely to pass on to their children. Because the embryos combine sperm and egg from the biological parents with tiny battery-like structures called mitochondria from the donor's egg, the resulting baby has DNA from the mother and father as usual, plus a small amount of genetic material -- about 37 genes -- from the donor.
The process has led to the phrase "three-parent babies," though more than 99.8% of the DNA in the babies comes from the mother and father. Research on MDT, which is also known as mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT), was pioneered in the UK by doctors at the Newcastle Fertility Centre. The work aimed to help women with mutated mitochondria to have babies without the risk of passing on genetic disorders. People inherit all their mitochondria from their mother, so harmful mutations in the "batteries" can affect all of the children a woman has.
The process has led to the phrase "three-parent babies," though more than 99.8% of the DNA in the babies comes from the mother and father. Research on MDT, which is also known as mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT), was pioneered in the UK by doctors at the Newcastle Fertility Centre. The work aimed to help women with mutated mitochondria to have babies without the risk of passing on genetic disorders. People inherit all their mitochondria from their mother, so harmful mutations in the "batteries" can affect all of the children a woman has.
Prevents further transmission I assume (Score:2, Insightful)
Didn't say in the summary but I'm assuming any children this child has, would no longer carry the same risk the mother had, so it would end that line of defects for good for that family...
I wonder if this technology could be used to "cure" after-effects of inbreeding in monarchies.
Re:Prevents further transmission I assume (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if this technology could be used to "cure" after-effects of inbreeding in monarchies.
No. Inbreeding comes from the chromosomal DNA, not mitochondrial DNA.
But that's not needed, since inbreeding is trivially solved by a single generation of not inbreeding.
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Wait... an ENTIRE generation of not inbreeding? Ain't no one got time for that! (chip, chip, tallyho, wot wot!)
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No. Inbreeding comes from the chromosomal DNA, not mitochondrial DNA.
Interesting, did not know that!
Re: Prevents further transmission I assume (Score:2)
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Forget monarchies, the peasants [nypost.com] have them beat [wikipedia.org].
Hmmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
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What could possibly go wrong here....?
Oh, c'mon...you say that as if Hollywood has planted half a dozen catch-the-he-was-such-a-nice-chimera-next-door murderer scripts in your head or something...
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Why don't you go ahead and tell us?
Eugenics (Score:2, Insightful)
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So we have officially entered the world of genetic designer babies. Leave out disease potential, select skin, eye, & hair color, height, IQ potential ....that's Eugenics - exactly what the Nazis were trying to accomplish.
I suppose it was inevitable, now that we've "unleashed genetic power", to quote a Jurassic Park character. The temptation of that godlike power was just too much. Oh, we'll make noises about ethics and such, but we'll ignore them, especially when it comes to wealthy and powerful people.
You may live to see man-made horrors etc etc etc.
Re: Eugenics (Score:5, Informative)
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Leave out disease potential
Warnings about eugenics aside, who wouldn't want this?
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It even arguably removes any stupid arguments about racial superiority. Suppose for a moment that any such arguments about some group of people being inferior were tru
If Eugenics worked that would be fine (Score:2)
The problem is of course as you alluded to, it doesn't work. We don't have the technology to predict what the changes are going to do.
Also the Nazis weren't necessarily doing eugenics the way the article is talking about. The Nazis had a belief in their inherent superiority because of the land th
Re: If Eugenics worked that would be fine (Score:2)
The problem is of course as you alluded to, it doesn't work. We don't have the technology to predict what the changes are going to do.
Actually we do, it's a field of study called expression proteomics, and it already has real-world applications.
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So we have officially entered the world of genetic designer babies
No. This is just the mitochondria not the entire genome. As indicated the vast majority of the genome is from the biological parents.
Leave out disease potential, select skin, eye, & hair color, height, IQ potential ....that's Eugenics
I hate when people go full bend on this topic. Leave out hunting and all the other useful ways we can use guns and all you have is mass shootings! Guns are just gateways to mass shootings!! Do you hear what you sound like?
Like any tool there is a potential for abuse and misuse. It's up to our society to encourage good use and discourage bad use. Nazi and eugenics are su
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tiny battery vs. tiny engine (Score:1)
tiny battery
that stores it? Or better yet the editor should've removed the analogy completely and nothing of value would've been lost.
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Almost correct. An engine converts a form of energy to mechanical energy. But here there is no output of mechanical energy. Mitochondria convert ADP (empty 'battery' molecules) to ATP (charged 'battery' molecules) with the help of sugar. It is not a battery itself. It's a 'battery' charger.
Re: tiny battery vs. tiny engine (Score:1)
we have created the anti-bastard (Score:2)
So that's the backstory on the Nexus-1? (Score:2)
All kidding aside, it's not hard to imagine a future where parents look to prevent more than just inherited incurable diseases, but also not having anything less than movie star good looks. They'll want their kids to resemble idealized versions of themself, that one movie star they sort of look like, in the right light, and after surgery.
Annoying (Score:1)
This is a bit annoying.
1. It's not a three-parent baby if they swap the mitochondrial DNA since that isn't human DNA, it's a separate set for the mitochondria that "live" inside our cells. It's a factory default baby with a set of updated genes for the factory worker mitochondria.
2. Genes are not the same size, hence the "99.8% DNA from parents" is probably a wrong number (ignoring that it's mitochondrial).
Orgy? (Score:2)
Christians (Score:2)