UK grants doctors first licence to create 3-parent babies

Britain’s fertility regulator has granted first licence to doctors in Newcastle, northern England to create babies using a three-parent IVF technique designed to prevent inherited genetic diseases. The technique involves intervening in the fertilisation process to remove faulty mitochondria (tiny energy-generating batteries inside cells) which can cause fatal genetic diseases. The treatment is also known as “three-parent” IVF, as the babies, born from genetically modified embryos, would have DNA from a mother, a father and from a woman donor. Britain’s was the first country to pass law to allow three-parent IVF. The world’s first and so-far only known three-parent IVF baby was born in 2016 in Mexico to a Jordanian couple.

Month: Current Affairs - March, 2017