Starting next year, children in the U.K. may be born with the DNA of three different people, after a Parliamentary vote earlier today approved a controversial fertility procedure.
The lower chamber of British Parliament, the House of Commons, voted 382-128 today to pass a bill authorizing an in-vitro fertilization technique that would combine two parents’ genetic material with
that of a third female donor. The upper chamber, the House of Lords, is expected to take up the issue next month; if they also vote in favor, three-person IVF could become legal by October, making the U.K. the first country in the world to permit it.
The procedure would allow women who carry the genes for mitochondrial disease—a collection of inherited and incurable conditions—to have their own biological children without passing down the risk. Mitochondria, often described as the “power center” of the cell, are the organelles that provide it with energy. They also have 37 genes within them—and when those genes have certain mutations, they can trigger a host of debilitating and sometimes fatal problems, including muscular dystrophy, heart and liver issues, seizures, and diabetes. Worldwide, an estimated one out of every 6,500 children is thought to have some form of mitochondrial disease, which can only be passed down from mother to child (sperm doesn’t play a role). Read more on Yahoonews
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