At least one baby whose genetic code was created out of the DNA of not two but three people has recently been born in the UK for the first time, local media reported citing the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the country’s fertility regulator.
As one British newspaper points out, the exact number of such newborns is currently unknown due to HFEA’s concerns that such information “could lead to the identification of a person to whom the HFEA owes a duty of confidentiality.” Instead, the regulator simply responded to a freedom of information request that “less than five” such births had occurred in the UK as of late April 2023.
The technique that allows for such births is known as mitochondrial donation treatment and is meant to prevent children from inheriting harmful conditions from their parents.
The IVF procedure in question essentially involves extracting nuclear material from mother’s fertilized egg and introducing it into a donor’s egg devoid of any unhealthy mitochondria.
This technique was pioneered by researchers at the Newcastle Fertility Center and permitted on the legislative level by the British parliament in 2015, with the first cases being approved in 2018, the report said.
The media outlet also warns that the effect of this procedure can potentially be undone as some of the “abnormal mitochondria” from the mother’s egg still end up being carried to the donor’s egg along with the nuclear material and can potentially multiply during the fetus’ development.
The first ever birth of a child born through the mitochondrial donation treatment was reported back in 2016 in Mexico, with the parents being a Jordanian couple and with the procedure being supervised by fertility specialists from the United States.