Groundbreaking ‘three parent’ IVF technique allows previously infertile woman to give birth
A GROUNDBREAKING new “three-parent” IVF technique has allowed a previously infertile woman to give birth.
Doctors announced that a healthy boy had been delivered in a "world first" - after they used the new procedure to combat infertility for the first time.
The so-called "three-parent" technique, also known by its scientific name of mitochondrial donation, was developed for a different purpose.
The treatment, which was given the green light in the UK last year, has the potential to allow couples who carry, and therefore risk passing on, deadly genetic diseases, to conceive healthy babies.
Though dubbed a "three-parent" therapy, babies born as a result only inherit personality traits, those that affect their appearance and other features that make a person unique, from their mum and dad - not the donor.
For the first time, in a unique experiment that one expert compared to a “genetic head transplant”, a fertility clinic in Ukraine used the treatment to help combat infertility.
Specialists fertilised a 34-year-old woman’s eggs with her partner’s sperm and then transferred their genes into a donor egg.
The woman gave birth to a boy on January 5, after more than a decade of trying to conceive, including four failed cycles of IVF.
The boy, who has the genetic identity of his parents and a very small amount of DNA from the second woman, is the second in the world to owe his existence to this procedure.
In April last year, the first "three-parent" baby was born using the treatment in Mexico.
Some scientists warn the treatment - also known as pronuclear transfer - could be unsafe and could give women false hope.
British experts today reacted to the birth, urging extreme caution.
Dr Yakoub Khalaf, director of the assisted conception unit at King's College London, said the use of the procedure to tackle infertility "could potentially introduce risk".
He said: "Caution and safety assessment is urged before widespread use of this technology."
His concerns were echoed by Dr Jane Stewart, secretary of the British Fertility Society, and a consultant in reproductive medicine.
She said: "This case in the Ukraine is unrelated to the work undertaken in the UK for the treatment for couples with mitochondrial disease.
"There is little or no evidence to support the use of mitochondrial transfer to improve egg or embryo quality or reverse egg ageing.
"There is certainly not enough research evidence available to justify its use in the clinical setting for improving IVF outcomes."
HOW DOES THE 'THREE-PARENT' IVF TECHNIQUE WORK?
The so-called "three-parent" baby treatment, is also known by its scienfitic name, mitochondrial donation.
It has been developed by scientists, who hope it will allow parents who carry, and risk passing on, genetic diseases, to have healthy babies.
Mitochondria are small structures found in our cells.
They generate energy that is used to power every part of our body.
Mitochondria have their own DNA, which only controls mitochondrial function and energy production, according to the Wellcome Trust.
This is completely separate from our nuclear DNA, which is what makes us who we are, governing our appearance and personality.
Mitochondrial disease can be fatal, affecting multiple organs.
It includes diabetes, heart problems, epilepsy and stroke-like incidents, and in serious cases death.
Mitochondrial DNA disease is passed from mother to baby.
The new mitochondrial donation technique, uses DNA from the mitochondria of a healthy donor, the nucleus of a mother's egg and a father's sperm to create an embryo.
The technique allows for those women who carry potentially fatal genetic mutations to have healthy babies.
As the nuclear DNA is not altered, mitochondrial donation will not affect a child's appearance or personality or any other features that make a person unique.
It simply allows for a child to be free of mitochondrial disease.
Source: The Wellcome Trust
Valery Zukin, who led the work at the Nadiya clinic in Kiev, argued it could help women whose embryos consistently stopped growing before they could be implanted in a womb.
The condition, known as embryo arrest, affects about one in 150 IVF patients.
The clinic is attempting to use the technique to revitalise the eggs of women in their 40s.
“It’s like the opening of a new era,” Dr Zukin said.
"Before, we could only increase the selection of embryos. But for us this moment opens up the possibility of augmenting embryos."
Mitochondrial replacement therapy, better known as ‘three-parent babies’, simply means a child that has three genetic parents, with a tiny proportion of the child’s DNA coming from their mother, father and a third person – an egg donor.
Dr Zukin said his team had run genetic tests on the Ukrainian baby and he appeared to be “completely normal”.
Another of the doctor’s patients, aged 29, is expected to give birth in March.
However, the experiment is regarded with mistrust by many researchers in the UK.
Dagan Wells, a reproductive geneticist at the University of Oxford, said it was not clear what defect in the eggs the technique was supposed to fix.
“It is probable that only a minority of infertile couples, if any, would benefit from pronuclear transfer,” he said.
Professor Adam Balen, chairman of the British Fertility Society, said it was “something that needs to be extremely carefully thought through and treated with caution”.
Julian Savulescu, professor of practical ethics at the University of Oxford, has previously argued that there is a strong moral case for testing the method as an infertility treatment.
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