Posted on 04/14/2010 8:08:43 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Babies with three biological parents could be conceived within three years after research that could stop children from inheriting severe diseases.
Scientists at Newcastle University have grown human embryos after merging DNA from two fertilised eggs, with a technique that could soon be used to prevent serious genetic disorders that affect 100 children in Britain a year.
The aim is to correct faulty “cellular batteries” — mitochondria — which can cause fatal heart, liver, neurological and muscle conditions, by replacing them with healthy ones from a donated embryo. A child would inherit genetic material from three parents. The mother and father would supply 99.8 per cent of its DNA, with a small amount from another woman, the mitochondrial donor.
Doug Turnbull, who led the research, said that it could potentially help families at risk from mitochondrial diseases to have healthy children in as little as three years, although follow-up studies are still needed.
There are regulatory barriers. In Britain it is illegal to place embryos created this way into a womb, but the Health Secretary can rescind the ban without legislating. Alison Murdoch, another leader of the team, said: “I don’t think we have the information yet to go to the Secretary of State. But we think the time is right to enter discussions about what information will be required for the Secretary of State to make that provision.”
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Preventing mitochondrial diseases is a good thing. And even better is the fact that the healthy baby can grow up to pass on its healthy mitochondrial DNA the natural way.
Most mitochondrial genes are not in the mitochondrium. They are actually integrated into the chromosome. Long story short: unless the faulty mitochondrial genes are in the mitochondrium, the problem won’t be fixed.
A human-human-human hybrid, as it were. ;-)
I appreciate science. I appreciate the many things that science has done in the medical realm over the years. However...it just strikes me as wrong to start “engineering” our progeny.
Adding a third party to the actual genetic material just makes me think that we may be giving up something very deeply rooted in our humanity for the possibility of some ....I can’t come up with the term....convenience? Kind of a “warranty” on the health of your progeny?
Maybe it’s just me but this seems like one of those things that looks alright on paper but starts to get creepy as the story begins to flesh out.
I appreciate science. I appreciate the many things that science has done in the medical realm over the years. However...it just strikes me as wrong to start “engineering” our progeny.
Adding a third party to the actual genetic material just makes me think that we may be giving up something very deeply rooted in our humanity for the possibility of some ....I can’t come up with the term....convenience? Kind of a “warranty” on the health of your progeny?
Maybe it’s just me but this seems like one of those things that looks alright on paper but starts to get creepy as the story begins to flesh out.
According to the article, the desired embryo’s DNA is placed into an embryo, a fertilized egg, that has had its own nucleus removed. According to the graphic, the DNA simply goes into an ovum, an unfertilized egg. If the former, one embryonic human being is destroyed for another.
I had thought that using an unfertilized egg for this purpose was possible.
Nekkid People!
Some mitochondrial diseases have their roots in nuclear DNA, but others (especially the more severe ones) are caused by faulty mitochondrial DNA. And faulty mitochondrial DNA is also believed to be a contributing factor in many diseases. The technique of preventing mitochondrial disease by using mitochondria from a donor egg isn’t speculative — it has already been successfully done in monkeys. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8220553.stm Obviously, this technique wouldn’t be used for mitochondrial diseases caused by nuclear DNA abnormalities.
Whenever I see depictions of that type, I always feel better about myself, somehow.....
I’m pretty sure they can use an unfertilized egg for the similar technique, in which cytoplasm from the donor egg is injected into the fertilized egg with the nuclear DNA which will be passed on to the offspring. This is incomplete, however, because to really wipe out a serious mitochondrial DNA disease, it would be necessary to remove and replace nearly all of the cytoplasm from the fertilized egg. It’s unlikely this could be done without inflicting serious damage on the fertilized egg. What they’re doing here is removing only the nucleus with the desired DNA, and putting it into an enucleated fertilized egg. I think there may be problems with getting an egg to develop normally if it hasn’t been fertilized, so using an unfertilized egg to receive the nucleus probably wouldn’t work. They may learn to overcome this, however. Presumably, for patients who have an ethical concern with this, the donor egg could be fertilized with sperm carrying a serious chromosomal defect that would prevent the fertilized egg from ever developing beyond a few cells, in other words that would never have had the potential to develop into a baby.
Why is there a rocking chair in the bathroom?
Who knew?
Well the logo does look a little like a DNA Double Helix
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