Three Parents Baby: Mitochondrial Donation Treatment
Recently a baby was born in the United Kingdom using DNA from three people born by a new IVF procedure called Mitochondrial Donation Treatment.
Three Parents Baby and MDT
- 3 parents’ baby involves using the DNA of three people in an effort to prevent children from inheriting incurable diseases.
- The first such baby was born in the USA in 2016.
- MDT combines the sperm and eggs from the biological parents with mitochondria from a donor’s eggs.
Two techniques for MDT
- Maternal spindle transfer (MST): the nuclear genetic material is removed from the eggs and transferred into donated eggs that have had their nuclear genetic material removed. The eggs are then fertilized with sperm to create embryos.
- Pronuclear transfer (PNT): the eggs are fertilized with sperm in a lab to create embryos. The nuclear genetic material within each embryo is then transferred into embryos created using donated eggs and sperm from the sperm provider. Again, the nuclear genetic material will have been removed from the donated eggs.