Innovative fertilization technique in vitro With DNA from three parents prevented the transmission of diseases from mothers to eight children, who were born healthy. But not everything is a sea of roses.
Eight babies were born healthy in the UK thanks to an innovative fertilization technique in vitro (FIV) aimed at preventing the transmission of hereditary mitochondrial diseases of mothers to their children.
The results of the new clinical trial were this Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine and is being seen as a great advance in reproductive medicine.
Mitochondrial diseases, which affect it about one in 5,000 newborns, have no cure and can cause symptoms such as vision loss, diabetes and muscle atrophy.
The new technique consists of replacement of mother’s defective mitochondrial DNA with healthy DNA from a dadoralso using the mother’s egg and the sperm of the father.
Some are claiming that the eight babies resulting from the revolutionary process have three parents, although investigators do not consider it correct, since only about 0.1% to ADN of the newborn comes from the donor.
The essay took place at the Newcastle Fertility Center in northeastern England, where 22 women underwent treatment. Eight babies – four boys and four girls – were born with ages that currently range from six months to two years.
In the six most successful cases, the amount of mutated Mitochondrial DNA was reduced between 95% and 100%. In the other two, the reduction was 77% to 88%, still below the level considered pathological. All babies are healthy, although one has presented a cardiac arrhythmia, which was in the meantime successfully treated.
Three of the eight babies are being monitored more closely due to signs of “reversal” – A still little understood phenomenon, in which defective mitochondria that had been practically eliminated reappear at higher levels at birth.
The problems
The technique was “effective in reducing the transmission” of diseases between mother and child, reads in the study.
French expert in mitochondrial diseases Julie Stefann told AFP that “it is a matter of risk-benefit relationship: for a mitochondrial disease, the benefit is obvious.” But “in the context of infertility, it is not proven,” he added.
Oxford University Reproductive Genetics expert Dagan Wells also points out that “some scientists will be a little disappointed for so much time and effort has so far been brought to the birth of only eight children.”
The question ethics It also worries many health professionals. The use of Dado Mitochondrial DNA implies the destruction of embryos. There are also fears that practice can make way for genetic manipulation to create “Babies by order”.
The United Kingdom was the first country to legally approve this type of treatment in 2015. Many other countries – including the US and France – have not yet authorized it. But technique is only authorized in cases where there is a high risk of mitochondrial disease transmission.
