A “three-person baby” born using new technique
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Scientists say a baby has been born from a new technique that combines DNA from three people.
The goal was to prevent the child from inheriting a fatal genetic disease from the mother. The birth, of a boy, is revealed in a research summary published by the journal Fertility & Sterility. Scientists are scheduled to make a fuller presentation at a meeting next month.
The magazine New Scientist said the baby was born five months ago to Jordanian parents, and that they were treated in Mexico by a team led by John Zhang of the New Hope Fertility Center in New York. The technique is not approved in the United States, but Zhang told the magazine, ?To save lives is the ethical thing to do.?
The child was at risk of inheriting DNA for Leigh syndrome, a severe neurological disorder that usually kills within a few years of birth. Only a minority of Leigh syndrome cases are inherited through the type of DNA that is targeted by the new method. The technique involved removing some of the mother?s DNA from an egg, and leaving the disease-causing DNA behind. The mother?s healthy DNA was slipped into a donor?s egg, which was then fertilized. As a result, the baby inherited DNA from both parents and the egg donor.
The technique is sometimes said to produce ?three-parent babies,? but the DNA contribution from the egg donor is very small.
People carry DNA in two places, the nucleus of the cell and in features called mitochondria, which lie outside the nucleus. The technique i...
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