Scientists from the UK have declared that three-parent IVF (in vitro fertilization) methods to create babies are now safe but only under a very specific set of circumstances. This type of IVF treatment aims to prevent passing on hereditary diseases to a child.
During three-parent IVF, the procedure replaces the defective mitochondria in the mother's egg and gets with another from a healthy woman donor. This means that most of the genetic traits will be inherited from the parents but with a tiny amount from the donor. A baby has already been born from this technique in Mexico.
This week, experts from Britain announced their recommendation for the approval of three-parent IVF techniques, as long as this practice heeds caution. The panel of experts reported that the procedure can now be considered as a potential reliable treatment after significant progress in research.
Upon reviewing evidence based on this IVF treatment, Robin Lovell-Badge, who is also the Head of the Division of Stem Cell Biology and Developmental Genetics at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research in London, said that this is now the stage where you need to try it out to learn more from it. However, only carefully selected patients will be able to go through this treatment since the risk of developing a badly affected child is very high.
A recent study found that defective mitochondria might still invade and one in eight babies could still have the disease in question. Scientists from the Oregon Health and Science Unit created embryos in a lab, which were taken from four women, who gave birth to children with mitochondrial disease. Researchers say that some embryonic stem cell lines reverted to the mutant mitochondrial DNA.
The panel of scientific experts highly recommends extra check ups during pregnancy to make sure that the baby is healthy. Lovell-Badge added that a pre-natal diagnosis method is recommended to check if reversion is occurring inside the developing fetus.
To finalize this, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which is UK's fertility regulator, will have to decide whether or not to issue the first license to a clinic that will use this three parent IVF technique. The U.K. parliament has legalized the controversial IVF treatment.