There is breaking news this afternoon, as it has been confirmed that a child using the controversial ‘three-parent' method has been born in Mexico.
Details on the birth, which will be revealed at the American Society of Reproductive Medicine’s congress in Salt Lake City next month, are limited, but New Scientist is reporting that the baby boy was born five months ago.
“This is great news and a huge deal,” Dusko Ilic from King’s College London, who wasn’t involved in the work, told the publication.
“It’s revolutionary.”
The 'three-parent' approach, allows those with genetic mutations have healthy babies, but it has only been legally approved in the UK.
According to reports, the family from Jordan had been trying to have a baby for 20 years; they suffered four miscarriages and their daughter passed away at the age of six from Leigh syndrome. Their second child passed away from the same disorder at just eight months.
New Scientist says the world's first baby incorporating DNA from three parents has been born
— Sky News Newsdesk (@SkyNewsBreak) September 27, 2016
It was then they discovered that the mother has Leigh syndrome herself, a fatal disorder that affects the nervous system. It is passed on through her mitochondrial DNA.
However, the new approach sees scientists taking the nucleus from the mother’s egg and implanting it in a donor egg that has its nucleus removed.
According to the Independent, experts in the area believe the term 'three-parent baby' is inaccurate for this reason as the significant DNA is still from two people.
The technique has not been approved in the US which is why the couple went to Mexico.
"At last, the first child of a mother with a mtDNA mutation is born after mitochondrial donation," Professor Bert Smeets, director of the Genome Centre at Maastricht University, said.
"The safety of the method had already been quite convincingly demonstrated by the Newcastle group in the UK and introduction into the clinic would only be a matter of time – obviously, dependent on national regulation or the absence of it.”
