This article from the NY daily news popped up on my Facebook feed today. It got me really annoyed and very nearly (to my shame) became a long Facebook rant. However, I paused and thought I would put together a more thought out response and reply.
This article says that this could be the slippery slope to creating designer babies. The heading of the article shows a complete lack of understanding of the science involved by campaigners against the technique.
To create 'designer baby' there has to be an actual manipulation of the nucleic DNA coding.
This '3 parent baby' is only for cases where there are issues with the mother's mt DNA. This is a different type of DNA that is present in the mitrochondria (the cell's "powerhouse" to simplify) in the main part of the cells. These are present in all cells.
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| Simple diagram of a human cell |
The healthy nucleus is taking from the "genetic mother's" egg and placed, instead, in an egg which has had the nucleus removed but has healthy mitrochondria. So the 3 parents are: 2 Parents for the nucleic DNA (the egg and the sperm) & 1 additional parent provides the donor egg.
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| The process of transplanting a new nucleus |
The mitrochondrial DNA will be then present in all the child's cells. However, the mitchondrial DNA (which would usually be provided by the mother) is provided by the donor of the additional egg.
While in a legal sense, I can see how this moves us closer to allowing designer babies. However, scientifically, it does not feature any manipulation of DNA in the traditional sense. I don't believe that we understand enough how different genes interact to fully be able to manipulate DNA to predicatable results. So the progress to wanting to create designer babies is, scientifically, a long way off.
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