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Biotech

Healthy Babies Born in Britain After Scientists Used DNA From Three People to Avoid Genetic Disease (phys.org) 92

Posted by EditorDavid from the three-body-solution dept.
"Eight healthy babies were born in Britain," reports Phys.org, "with the help of an experimental technique that uses DNA from three people to help mothers avoid passing devastating rare diseases to their children, researchers reported Wednesday."

Mutations in mitochondrial DNA "can cause a range of diseases in children that can lead to muscle weakness, seizures, developmental delays, major organ failure and death," and in rare cases even pre-IVF testing can't clearly detect their presence. Researchers have been developing a technique that tries to avoid the problem by using the healthy mitochondria from a donor egg. They reported in 2023 that the first babies had been born using this method... Using this method means the embryo has DNA from three people — from the mother's egg, the father's sperm and the donor's mitochondria — and it required a 2016 U.K. law change to approve it. It is also allowed in Australia but not in many other countries, including the U.S. Experts at Britain's Newcastle University and Monash University in Australia reported in the New England Journal of Medicine Wednesday that they performed the new technique in fertilized embryos from 22 patients, which resulted in eight babies that appear to be free of mitochondrial diseases. One woman is still pregnant...

Robin Lovell-Badge [a stem cell and developmental genetics scientist at the Francis Crick Institute who was not involved in the research] said the amount of DNA from the donor is insignificant, noting that any resulting child would have no traits from the woman who donated the healthy mitochondria...

In the U.K., every couple seeking a baby born through donated mitochondria must be approved by the country's fertility regulator. As of this month, 35 patients have been authorized to undergo the technique. Critics have previously raised concerns, warning that it's impossible to know the impact these sorts of novel techniques might have on future generations... But in countries where the technique is allowed, advocates say it could provide a promising alternative for some families.

Healthy Babies Born in Britain After Scientists Used DNA From Three People to Avoid Genetic Disease More | Reply

Healthy Babies Born in Britain After Scientists Used DNA From Three People to Avoid Genetic Disease

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  • My throuple can have a baby! I'll tell my polycule.

    How is this any different than organ donation anyway? Funny to watch the right-wing losers freak out over it though.

    • Re:Great news (Score:5, Interesting)

      by DamnOregonian ( 963763 ) on Sunday July 20, 2025 @12:59AM (#65532156)
      Organelle donation? ;)

      Are people really freaking out about this? How sad. This is a fantastic development.
      A couple could otherwise have good nuclear DNA, but a high risk of defective mitochondria- this puts them back in the gene pool as healthy reproducers.
      Hard to see it as anything but a win for humanity.

      • No, honey! I wasn't cheating! I was just testing the quality of her mitochondria...

      • Narcissism is around 80 % genetic. These couples clearly both have those genes. Why is it good that narcissists are assisted with procreating??

    • How is this any different than organ donation anyway?

      Organ transplants will not be inherited, mitochondrial transplants will be inherited. Well, that's true for the babies that grow up to be mothers, mitochondria would be propagated ova, not by sperm.

      There's laws against gene modifications that could be passed on to offspring, and for a good reason. At least with an organ transplant if something goes wrong there's no passing on altered genes to another generation. Well, assuming reproductive organs are not transplanted.

      There's a lot we still don't know, an

      • Re:Great news (Score:5, Informative)

        by DamnOregonian ( 963763 ) on Sunday July 20, 2025 @01:50AM (#65532206)
        This isn't a genetic experiment.
        They're not modifying the nuclear or mitochondrial DNA.
        They're merely transplating the nuclear DNA into a gamete with its own functioning mitochondria.

        Could there be consequences to that? Of course. Those mitochondria may not play well with that particular nuclear combination- but it's not like you're going to create a new heritable disease that never existed before or some shit.

        Those mitochondria already existed.

        • Exactly, this isn't genetic modification. It's more like Frankenstein's monster, just swapping in a few parts from various places.

          • Sure, like an organ transplant.

            • >"Sure, like an organ transplant."

              Except an organ transplant doesn't pass down "forever" through genes in progeny.

              • These mitochondria already existed and area already passed down through genes in progeny.

                Your mitochondria isn't even sexually derived- it's a straight matrilineal line. There is no sexual selection here.
                Don't be stupid.

        • This isn't a genetic experiment.

          It's at least far from routine.

          They're not modifying the nuclear or mitochondrial DNA.
          They're merely transplating the nuclear DNA into a gamete with its own functioning mitochondria.

          That's messing with the gene pool in ways that hasn't been tried before, that makes this experimental. We likely won't know if there's any impact on the gene pool until these babies are grandparents.

          Could there be consequences to that? Of course. Those mitochondria may not play well with that particular nuclear combination- but it's not like you're going to create a new heritable disease that never existed before or some shit.

          Spreading a combination of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA that might not play well together sounds like it meets the definition of an inheritable disease to me.

          Couldn't they have somehow used the mitochondrial DNA from the father to mitigate against any kind of mismatch between the

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by HiThere ( 15173 )

            Mitochondria from the father would be equally experimental. Mitochondria are almost never inherited from the father.

            But, yeah, it's experimental. Some mitochondria don't play well with some nuclear DNA combinations. (Part of the mitochondrial DNA is stored in the cell nucleus.) But it won't create a "new genetic disease" because those things already happen once in awhile. It's just that it might not fix the problem. Presumably they check that before they do the implantation though.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by XXongo ( 3986865 )

              (Part of the mitochondrial DNA is stored in the cell nucleus.)

              I'm a little dubious about this, but I noted the unusual phrasing "stored in the cell nucleus."

              I suppose it's possible that some mitochondrial DNA somehow gets inside the nuclear envelope, but "stored in the cell nucleus" is not identical as "transmitted in the chromosomal DNA". I'm not sure if we care about where mitochondrial DNA that's not the part that's inherited is located.

              • Re: (Score:3)

                by HiThere ( 15173 )

                Sorry I can't point you at a reference, but thing is that the mitochondrial environment is a really bad place for DNA to live, so over evolutionary time some of the bacterial DNA moved into the cell nucleus. Mitochondria is now an "obligate parasite", though parasite is *really* the wrong term. (I can't think of the term for obligate symbiote.)

                OTOH, I'm talking about the function rather then the physical pieces. This is probably similar how some of our DNA "moved into" the plants that we eat, so now we a

          • It's at least far from routine.

            So? Is that supposed to have meaning?

            That's messing with the gene pool in ways that hasn't been tried before, that makes this experimental. We likely won't know if there's any impact on the gene pool until these babies are grandparents.

            It literally does not mess with the gene pool in the slightest.
            Mitochondria are not part of the "gene pool".
            You can stretch the meaning of that to include them, but it goes far past pedantic into the territory of "simply wrong."
            There is no sexual selection influencing the mitochondrial genome.

            Spreading a combination of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA that might not play well together sounds like it meets the definition of an inheritable disease to me.

            Less so than beating your children. That's going to spread for generations.
            Your mitochondria will work, or they will not. You will survive if they do, you will not if they don't

      • Huh? It's worse then. Because someone who needs an organ transplant likely has a weak organ .. a trait they might pass on to their kid. With DNA the fix is a gift to the subsequent generations. By the way your argument is ridiculous, it's like saying if you have brown eyes you shouldn't marry someone with blue eyes because then you're playing God because it's unnatural to mix brown eye and blue eye genes.

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by MacMann ( 7518492 )

          Huh? It's worse then. Because someone who needs an organ transplant likely has a weak organ .. a trait they might pass on to their kid.

          That was already the case since if this was an inherited condition then it was passed down already. Well, there can be a de novo mutation that can cause problems for offspring but that's not something this procedure is intended to treat. De novo mutations happen but they are rarely inherited for a number of reasons. If an organ transplant is an option then it would appear that the genes weren't so bad as to result in stillbirth. There's also other reasons for an organ transplant than a genetic condition

        • People with blue eyes, adult lactose tolerance, or red hair are mutations and they should be segregated from the general population. People with none of the above and simply low melanin won't be completely ostracized, but should be on a probationary status. Just to make sure they aren't carring genes for the aforementioned mutant type.

    • No one is upset over this, but they are living rent free in your head.

      • Re: Great news (Score:4, Interesting)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday July 20, 2025 @05:43AM (#65532382)

        No one is upset over this, but they are living rent free in your head.

        Dude there's people freaking out about this in this very comment section. Right wingers in America specifically have a long standing ban on any research involving modifying human embryos, and the right-wingers have banned specifically this class of clinical treatment.

        This isn't living rent free in people's head. This is people actively impacting the lives of others. It's a very real thing that is happening. Pretending it doesn't is dumb on a level as bad as those we are criticising. Either that you're gas lighting on purpose.

        Either way, be better than this.

    • >"My throuple can have a baby! I'll tell my polycule."

      Next up: redefining marriage yet again, but for three or more people?

      • Redefining, or allowing people to define it themselves?

        Maybe someone else's marriage isn't any of your fucking business?

        • >"Redefining, or allowing people to define it themselves? Maybe someone else's marriage isn't any of your fucking business?"

          It is everyone's business if everyone is expected to participate in the definition and then acknowledge it. The entire point of marriage is a societal signal. It isn't something secret or personal. Otherwise, literally anything can be marriage.

          As an aside, you have some serious anger and civil communication issues. Let's grab some statements from just your posts, so far, in thi

          • [Marriage] isn't something secret or personal.

            Some people do get married in secret. It is a contract between the people getting married. It is rarely done by proxy.

            But if you say it isn't personal, you won't have a problem getting married to an object or abstract concept in your absence and without your knowledge until after the fact. It's nothing personal after all, it's, how did you put it:

            a societal signal.

            • >"Some people do get married in secret. It is a contract between the people getting married. It is rarely done by proxy."

              No, for it to be valid, you have to obtain a license, and it has to be officiated and recorded by a government official. It is then on record. Can't be secret.

  • These scientists are not stopping to think how they may be injecting their own mistakes into the permanent gene pool. As soon as these babies start having children of their own the gene pool will be polluted with GMO humans and any oversights the scientists made. This could potentially bring down our species, at worst, depending on the oversight.

    • Yes. The gene pool will be polluted by the donor mitochondria that already existed, since they were donated.

      No, scientists won't be the death of our species. You fucking morons not understanding how stupid you are will be.

    • Cute. But a bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver. The genes are form the same species.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        A point, but given the mutation rate of mitochondria, not a good one. More to the point, if it doesn't fix the problem, or creates a worse problem, the kids probably won't reproduce.

        Also, since mitochondria are inherited almost only along the maternal line, it won't spread widely. It will be confined to the descendants in the female line of one family. (Sons may carry it, but won't spread it.)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by XXongo ( 3986865 )

        Cute. But a bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver.

        ROFL!

        You win the internet today.

    • You realise these scientists didn't create anything right? They simply repeated a process that occurs naturally except instead of limiting the genes to those present in the egg and sperm they spliced some out and replaced them with those of a third party.

      Evolution is often a self correcting process. If they made a mistake it's likely the oversights will die out. It's insanely difficult to progress a gene in the wider gene pool without multiplying it millions of times first - like what they do with GMO mosqu

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        This isn't gene line surgery. It's inheritable only along the female line. (But, yeah, mistakes WILL happen. Even normal mitochondria have a high mutation rate. And those with problems will be disadvantaged, and probably have no grandchildren. And if they do, only the granddaughters will spread the mutation.)

    • False. They literally consulted an ethics board and had it approved. Hmm. How many ethics experts approved your comment before you spewed it out into the world?

    • How many children do you think these people are going to have??? "Bring down the species" level of problem would require a huge number of other humans to die off to reduce the population down to where these are at all statistically significant. And even if the tech spreads beyond this one experiment, it's not going to cover the majority of even first world nations that could afford the operation.
      And, let's say there is a bad combo, then we can switch in another set of mitochondrial DNA for the next generati

  • trait (Score:3)

    by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Sunday July 20, 2025 @02:22AM (#65532226)

    any resulting child would have no traits from the woman who donated the healthy mitochondria

    isn't healthy mitochindria a trait ?

    Anyway, I certainly don't fault them for wanting a healthy baby and I wish the familes luck

    • Hmm, considering that cancer is primarily a mitochondrial disease, healthy mitochondria is extremely important.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        Is it? Got a reference? I've heard several ideas, and thought there were lots of different causes.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      isn't healthy mitochindria a trait ?

      Certainly. It would have been better worded to say "no other traits". Mitochondria have very little DNA left. Most of the genes needed to make mitochondria have migrated to the nucleolus.

  • Breaking the Laws of GOD (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Epeeist ( 2682 ) on Sunday July 20, 2025 @04:48AM (#65532342) Homepage

    You just know the fundies are going to be all over this. When do we expect the executive order from Trump banning it in the US?

    So, which bit of the cell after "conception" does the soul come from?

    • Reading the blurb and the article, it always DNA is being donated from an egg. Nothing is said about a fertilized egg.

      But yes, guaranteed the fundies will jump on this at some point even though it contradicts their own words. All they care about is something popping out, no matter how much pain and suffering it has to live with.

    • So they're going to get obsessed about this because of abortion. Abortion has been a very useful political issue because the knee-jerk reaction to child killing makes it really easy to create a wedge issue out of it. We literally have documentation from the seventies where Republican strategists got together and worked out that abortion was the perfect issue they would use to control the middle class and steal all their money and property.

      So this will fall under the same purview as ivf treatments. It'll

    • When do we expect the executive order from Trump banning it in the US?

      It is already banned in the USA.

      Although there is nothing preventing an executive order making it twice as forbidden.

  • Why not just use the mitochondria from the father if the problem was with the ones provided by the mother?

    • They used the entire egg of the donor, minus the nucleus, which contains the mitochondria. Males don't make those.

      • Most cell types in every human body, regardless of sex, contain mitochondria. They're what power the cells. It's true that with very few exceptions, people usually get them from their mother, but there have also been recorded cases where the father's mitochondria made it into the next generation, see the Wikipedia page "Paternal mtDNA transmission".

        • Edit: I misread your original reply, and I see what you mean: instead of swapping the mitochondria, they swapped the nucleus. That makes sense.

  • be big and controversial someday. They can't be banned because they can be arranged out of country.

    • The first two designer babies were twin girls in China. November 2018. After their successful birth, the treatment was immediately banned in China.

      (In contrast, test tube babies are still legal. The first artificial human was a girl in 1978,)

      Designer babies are banned in most of the world, for some reason. It is nice to see that apparently the UK is an exception. Although technically these are not designer babies, as their DNA hasn't been altered. Donor eggs aren't really a radical concept.

  • The claim that donor mitochondriaâ(TM)s DNA is âoeinsignificantâ is like calling the foundation of a house trivial because itâ(TM)s underground. Mitochondrial DNA is the foundation of metabolism. These genes donâ(TM)t shape eye color or height, but their mutations can trigger catastrophic conditions. Hardly insignificant when theyâ(TM)re the difference between vitality and devastation.

    This is a remarkable leap. Critics raising alarms about future generations shouldn't be regul

    • This is not editing. This is using DNA straight up from someone who could already have children. These are genes that are already in the population mix. Nothing new introduced. If the donor mother had had sex with the father and those children had sex with the mother, the same child could potentially result. Stop being paranoid.

    • Bullshit.

      Mitochondria replicate independently.
      Damaged mitochondrial lines are indeed problematic, but there is no sexually reproductive way to fix them. If the line breaks, it is broken.

      They are not the foundation of your house- they are the power supply- and they are donated unmodified.

  • "Eight healthy babies were born in Britain,"

    Tech avoiding future harm is promising, but you’re going to have to sell a lot harder than that to convince people.

    The most organic human ever is still breathing the same air we have polluted for centuries now. The same food chain. The same water. The same microplastic problem to be found in our very veins years from now. Just as we’re doing to fish today.

    Being born healthy, is quickly becoming a tiny fraction of the challenge of selling survival.

  • Let's see you figure out how to connect them in your family tree database!

    • Ancestry DNA doesn't do mitochondrial DNA testing. Nor does 23andMe. Both only do autosomal testing.

      The only consumer-focused DNA lab that does mtDNA testing, is Family Tree DNA.

      But yeah, it might one day cause a strange puzzle.

  • Was the physician named Noonien Soong?
    Khan Noonien Singh?

  • Got a serious genetic disease? The sensible solution: get your tubes tied. Want to raise a child? Adopt one instead!

    • There is a deep, inherent desire among humans to have children of their own. This has been a thing as long as humans have been a thing, because evolution very strongly selects for populations that have offspring.

      So while it's not a bad idea for couples to adopt, when there is a risk to their own children, suggesting this as an alternative is like suggesting that they get a dog instead.

    • Or- replace your dysfunctional organelle with a working one!

      Fuck you, dude.
  • Oh goodie! Genetic experiments. Yeah cuts out disease/birth defects yada yada But you know good and well someone is going to tinker around and try to create a "SUPER HUMAN" and screw it all up.

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