SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the Kwisatz-Haderach-breeding-program dept.
GungnirSniper writes:
The US Food and Drug Administration is holding hearings to help determine if they should allow oocyte modification of mitochondrial DNA, which could prevent hereditary diseases that cause issues, such as such as seizures and blindness, from being passed on by mothers. In layman's terms, this "three-parent IVF" would allow the mitochondrial DNA of an unaffected woman to replace that of the mother while keeping the main DNA, so the child would still look like the mother and father.
From Scientific American: "Once the mtDNA has been swapped out, the egg could be fertilized in the lab by the father's sperm and the embryo would be implanted back into mom where pregnancy would proceed. The resulting child would be the genetic offspring of the intended mother but would carry healthy mitochondrial genes from the donor."
The New York Times has a shorter version of the story, as well as an opinion column urging ethical and moral consideration of this procedure.
Is this an ethical way to prevent future harm, or the start of a slippery slope to designer babies? Is the creation of designer babies immoral?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by siwelwerd on Friday February 28 2014, @02:07AM
I saw a headline elsewhere earlier to the effect of "OMG! Babies with 3 genetic parents!". Glad to see a helpful summary here with a link to an informative article, rather than just the clickbait headline I saw from the MSM.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 28 2014, @02:55AM
My thought exactly. So the "third parent" provides mtDNA. Nice work, submitter and editor.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by GungnirSniper on Friday February 28 2014, @03:12AM
You're welcome. :) It took about a half hour to read through various articles to understand the topic, find SN-worthy links, and then summarize. The site is powered by our submissions, so fire away! [soylentnews.org]
As for a slippery slope to designer babies, I don't see this incredible technology doing that. Existing treatments for mitochondrial diseases are limited to things like vitamins, so mtDNA manipulation may be one of the few effective options.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]