MOSCOW, May 10. In the UK, the first children were born from three parents after a new method of artificial insemination to prevent the inheritance of genetic diseases, The Guardian reported.
«The first British baby with DNA from three people was born after doctors conducted a revolutionary IVF procedure that aims to prevent children from inheriting incurable diseases,» the material says.
In response to a request from The Guardian, the UK's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) confirmed that «less than five» such babies were born in the country, but for reasons of confidentiality did not provide any further details.
The birth of a child with the genetic material of three people became possible thanks to the emergence of a new IVF method used to avoid the development of mitochondrial diseases in the child as a result of inheriting damaged mitochondria from the mother. These diseases can cause serious damage to the brain, heart, and liver, and are often the cause of early death.
During the procedure, reproductive specialists extract a nucleus with genetic material from an egg with damaged mitochondria and place it in the egg of a healthy donor woman, whose nucleus was also previously extracted. As a result, the mutated genes that carry the disease remain in the original mother's egg, thus avoiding the genetic disease.
Since the mitochondria in the germ cells have their own DNA, the created embryo, in addition to the genetic material of the father and mother, will contain healthy mitochondria with the DNA of another woman. As a result, the child inherits about 37 genes from the «third parent», which is less than 0.2 percent, notes The Guardian.
The world's first child with the genetic material of three parents was born in 2016 in Mexico. A Jordanian couple turned to scientists in the United States because of a rare genetic disease that prevented the couple from having a child. The researchers, led by John Zhang, applied the technology using the genetic material of another female donor.
In 2015, the UK Parliament finally approved a bill allowing artificial insemination using DNA samples from three people. Thus, Britain became the first country to implement such a practice.