World’s First ‘Three Parent Baby’ Born Using Controversial Method

A US medical team recently delivered the world's first three parent baby using a revolutionary, albeit controversial, gene technique that uses DNA from three different people. According to a report, the baby boy's mother genetically suffers from the Leigh syndrome, a serious condition that has a negative impact on the development of the nervous system.

The genes of the disease reside in the mitochondria's DNA. Incidentally, mitochondrion generates energy to all the living cells in the body. The three parent gene technique was designed to produce human embryos devoid of the hereditary mitochondrial disease, which can affect many consecutive generations, as it is passed from mother to child. The degenerative disorder causing defective mitochondria resides in the body of the egg, where it stays apart from the rest of the DNA stored in the nucleus.

The three parent gene technique involves the removal of the nucleus from the mother's fertilized eggs and moving it into a nucleus free egg, received from a donor who has healthy mitochondria. The result is an embryo, which comprises of the mother's nuclear DNA and the donor's mitochondrial DNA, which is fertilized with the father's sperm.

The procedure, which saw the birth of the baby boy in Mexico, was carried out by John Zhang and his team at New York City's New Hope Fertility Center. Known as the spindle nuclear transfer, the team used it to create five embryos, out of which only one could develop normally. The healthy embryo was then implanted in the mother, and the procedure was a success leading to the birth of the healthy boy after nine months.

The technique has been approved legally in the UK, where in 2010 researchers demonstrated this method could work, though there was a doubt regarding the success of producing healthy embryos. The method, however, has not received legal approval in the US, which is precisely why Zhang and his team had the baby delivered at Mexico. According to Zhang, saving lives is the ethical thing to do.

"This is a milestone technique," said John Zhang. "It proves for the first time that genetic information from three people can avoid disease. We now know reconstitution of human eggs can produce a healthy baby." The details of the research and findings, regarding the procedure, will be discussed at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine's Scientific Congress in Salt Lake City during October.