New groundbreaking technique creates one embryo from three parents

November 13, 1:21 PMChicago Infertility & Miscarriage ExaminerIris Waichler

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New genetic research appears to create healthy embryos that will grow into healthy children.

Iris Waichler

British scientists at Newcastle University have just released information on a new technique they have created that will impact the world of infertility treatment.  Their original research goal was to prevent children from getting inherited medical disorders.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

The technique as described by the British researchers was to "prevent diseases by altering human embryos, which are the product of two mothers and one father."  Researchers had been working with a woman who had mitochondrial disease which she passed to her daughter. The researchers determined that they could, "prevent the passing of mitochondrial disease in a child by extracting nuclear DNA from a mother with mitochondrial disease and a father, then injecting that DNA into a donor egg from a woman without mitochondrial disease."

The resulting embryo showed no evidence of mitochondrial disease.  They used healthy DNA from a woman free of mitochondrial disease.  The embryo had all of the other DNA from her parents minus this DNA with the disease.  This also meant the child would inherit the parents physical traits just as any other child without infertility treatment would.

IMPACT OF MITOCHONDRIAL DISEASE

According to the BBC News; "faults in the mitochondrial DNA can cause around 50 known diseases, some of which lead to disability and death" They went on to say that about " one in every 6,500 people is affected by such conditions, which include fatal liver failure, stroke-like episodes, blindness, muscular dystrophy, diabetes and deafness."

Professor Patrick Chinnery, a professor at University of Newcastle in describing the technique stated; "We believe we could develop this technique and offer treatment in the foreseeable future that will give families some hope of avoiding passing these diseases to their children ."

The team was careful to point out that as they did their research, they used abnormal embryos that had not been used in other infertility treatments.  They further went on to describe the process they used. A few hours after a nucleus was created, " the nucleus, containing DNA from the mother and father, was removed from the embryo, and implanted into a donor egg whose DNA had been largely removed." The only genetic material left by the donor, was the disease free DNA. All of the other DNA came directly from the biological parents. Thus 3 people were used to create this apparently healthy embryo.

FUTURE RESEARCH

This technique is in the  early stages and the embryo created was later destroyed after 6 days. The team currently only is experimenting with mice in the laboratory.  It will not be used for infertility treatment with humans at this time.  Further research is needed.

For more information on this new research you can visit the sites below:

http://http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7227861.stm

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=4246047&page=1

http://www.france24.com/en/20080205-scientists-create-three-parents-embryo-genetics