The first baby in the UK created with the DNA from three different people has just been born after groundbreaking IVF procedures were carried out to prevent children from inheriting incurable diseases.
The treatment is known as mitochondrial donation treatment, and uses tissue from the eggs of healthy female doctors to create IVF embryos that are essentially free of any harmful mutations that can be hereditary.
Due to the embryos combining sperm and egg from biological parents with mitochondria from the donor’s egg, the baby is born with genetic material from the donor apart from the usual mother and father.
99.8% of the DNA still comes from the mother and father, but they have become known as ‘three-parent babies’ nonetheless.
This is not the first time such a baby was born. In 2016, a US doctor announced the world’s first MDT birth after having treated a Jordanian woman who carried mitochondrial mutations that could cause a fatal condition known as Leigh syndrome.
#MaltaDaily