NEWS

FIRST "THREE PERSON BABY" BORN USING A NEW METHOD CALLED MITOCHONDRIAL DONATION

A few months ago was born the first baby using a new “three person” fertility technique. Experts say that this advance starts a new era in medicine, and could help other families with rare genetic conditions.

The baby has the usual DNA from his mum and dad, plus a tiny bit of genetic code from a donor. The couple decided to do it because the mother carried in her genes an illness that would have passed to the baby.

This is not the first time scientists have created babies that have DNA from three different people; it started in the late 1990s, but this time doctors have used an entirely new method, called mitochondrial donation. Mitochondria are small structures inside nearly every cell of the body that convert food into energy. Some women carry genetic defects in mitochondria and it’s probably they will pass it to their children. In the case of this family, the woman carried a disease in her mitochondria called Leigh Syndrome, a severe neurological disorder that causes the progressive lost of movement and deterioration of mental functions. Children with this illness usually die in two or three years.

Therefore, this new method takes all the vital DNA from the mother’s egg plus healthy mitochondria from a donor egg to create a healthy new egg that can be fertilized with the father’s sperm. Therefore, the baby has 0,1% of his DNA from the donor and all the genetic code from the mother and father.

The reactions to this method that allows creating babies from three different persons are varied. Some of them say that maybe the child will feel strange about having DNA from three people. Some fertility experts say it’s important to push ahead, but cautiously. Even some critics say the work is irresponsible.


PERSONAL OPINION:

In my opinion, I think this is a great progress because it allows women or men who carry a disease in their DNA to have completely healthy babies. Well, I think maybe this method has to improve and fix some aspects, but maybe one day all the people who need it will be able to use it. Personally, I don’t think the kid will have a lot of complex thinking about s/he is a kid from three different persons, because actually s/he only has 0,1% of the donor’s genetic code. As the new says, all the genetic code for things like hair and eye colour is from the mother and father.


NEW WORDS:

Herald: proclamar
Miscarriage: abort natural
Patch: zona (de la pell)


Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-37485263