DNA-swap technology almost ready for fertility clinic

NATURE NEWS ^ | 24 October 2012 | David Cyranoski

[neverdem]

Mitochondrial transfer could reduce the risk of childhood disease.

Researchers say that technology to shuffle genetic material between unfertilized eggs is ready to make healthy babies. The technique could allow parents to minimize the risk of a range of diseases related to defects in the energy-producing cell organelles known as mitochondria.

Mitochondrial defects affect an estimated 1 in 4,000 children, and can cause rare and often fatal diseases such as carnitine deficiency, which prevents the body from using fats for energy.

They are also implicated in a wide range of more common diseases affecting children and adults, such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. Mitochondria have their own DNA and are inherited only from the mother, so replacing defective mitochondria in eggs from mothers who have a high risk of passing on such diseases could spare the children.

Three years ago, a team led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a reproductive biologist at Oregon Health and Science University in Beaverton, created1 eggs with donor mitochondria that developed into healthy rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta). Today, the same team reports2 the creation of human embryos in which all of the mitochondria come from a donor. The method needs to be tweaked to increase efficiency and gain regulatory clearance, but it is ready for the clinic, says Mitalipov. “You can expect the first healthy child to be born [using this method] within three years.”...

[neverdem]

I hope they can find a way to do this ethically. It doesn't look ready for prime time. They didn't use tax dollars.

[acapesket]

This whole concept is sick...take it from a former fertility patient. There is no such thing as “science” anymore but paid shills who get our money to produce the frankenstein world. Sick.

[neverdem]

This whole concept is sick...take it from a former fertility patient.

The only thing this has to do with fertility is that it mightt be done in a traditional fertility clinic.

Did you read the story? It's about mitochondrial disease that's inherited only from the mother. It's gene therapy. If fertilized human eggs are not wasted or destroyed, I don't see a problem. If it's done right, I could see the Catholic Church's OK.

[1010RD]

We better figure out when life begins if you want them to do this ethically.

[exDemMom]

We better figure out when life begins if you want them to do this ethically.

Since you still seem to have trouble with the concept, try this: think of life like a fire. In this case, there is nothing we can do to light the fire; we only have the means to extinguish it. (Or we wait until it extinguishes naturally.)

That said, I am completely against any kind of assisted reproduction. In the natural process, deleterious mutations are weeded out because individuals with certain mutations cannot reproduce. But assisted reproduction allows those people to have babies despite their genetic defects. And the babies themselves don't go through a selection process, so they survive with certain deleterious mutations. I know, it sounds harsh to say that people shouldn't be helped to have babies if nature didn't give them that ability. If it weren't for the thriving abortion industry, though, they could adopt perfectly healthy babies...

And, you see, I base my objections purely in science.

[1010RD]

Your 2nd paragraph is food for thought, but you speak of life in generalities. When does this general life become a human life, as in a human being?

Who are you going as this Halloween?

[exDemMom]

Your 2nd paragraph is food for thought, but you speak of life in generalities. When does this general life become a human life, as in a human being?

Who are you going as this Halloween?

There is no point at which a life becomes human; either it is human or it is something else. If it isn't human, it won't become human.

I assume you are asking about the qualities of a human that make its life worth protecting? I think I've already answered that, as much as I can. It has to have the ability to develop as a person and be able to survive throughout the pregnancy.

For Halloween, I will simply buy a lot of kid bait, and stand at my door to see how many kids it attracts... I'm not going to dress up.

[1010RD]

It has to have the ability to develop as a person and be able to survive throughout the pregnancy.

OK, that's a start and we're pretty close. When does that happen?

For Halloween, I will simply buy a lot of kid bait, and stand at my door to see how many kids it attracts... I'm not going to dress up.

OK, fine. What kind of candy and if you were going to dress up what would your costume be and why?

[exDemMom]

OK, that's a start and we're pretty close. When does that happen?

I'm not sure there is any way to say when that happens. Most blastocysts won't survive, meaning that they never have that ability. Some survive long enough to become an embryo, but not much longer. Now we're getting into a grey area, because an embryo has rudimentary organs and so forth, so it looks like it could live longer, but some of them don't. And then there are the blastocysts that implant but form a mass instead of an embryo; clearly, those have no special right to life, since they will never gain the ability to survive separately and must be removed.

OK, fine. What kind of candy and if you were going to dress up what would your costume be and why?

Obviously, I'll get the kind of candy I like (because I will be stuck with the leftovers), so that will be little chocolate bars and so forth. As for what I would wear... I don't know. I used to make costumes for my son. I've dressed him as a pirate, a Native American, a mad scientist, a little blue monster... I forget what else. I suppose my choice in costume would be whatever strikes my fancy.