Reports of ‘three-parent babies’ multiply
By Sara Reardon,
Nature News
| 10. 19. 2016
A baby boy conceived using a controversial technique that mixes DNA from three people seems to be healthy, according to a hotly anticipated talk by the leader of the team that created the child. John Zhang, a physician at New Hope Fertility Clinic in New York City, offered few other details during his presentation at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s annual meeting on 19 October.
But one thing is clear: that ‘three-parent’ baby may soon have company — if it does not already. Nature has learnt that a paper in review at an unnamed journal claims that a child conceived using the technique has been born in China. And on 13 October, researchers from Ukraine announced that two women are pregnant with fetuses created with DNA from three people.
Meanwhile, politicians in Mexico — where New Hope’s ‘three-parent’ baby was conceived in its Guadalajara clinic — are mulling over laws to restrict use of the technique. The circumstances of that birth, first reported last month by New Scientist, have also drawn criticism from scientists and bioethicists...
Related Articles
By Gilma Avalos, NBC | 07.03.2024
Image by Josh Appel from Unsplash
The dream of becoming parents is turning into a nightmare for hundreds of people caught up in a surrogacy money scandal.
Some of the individuals are facing infertility or medical challenges, seeing surrogacy as...
By Emma McDonald Kennedy
| 07.11.2024
Louise Perry’s recent article in The Spectator cautions against “The quiet return of eugenics,” a threat she locates in preimplantation genetic testing for polygenic disorders. The technology is billed as a way for parents undergoing IVF to select which embryo to implant based on information about each embryo’s genetic risk factors and traits. These reports, she says, give parents “a very full picture of the adult that embryo could become”––from their child’s risk of developing different diseases to their “likely...
By Sonia Suter and Naomi Cahn, PET | 07.01.2024
Image by Dusdn5959 from Wikimedia Commons
Since the US Supreme Court's 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade (see BioNews 1147), there have been worries about the future of IVF in the USA. Both abortion and IVF involve decisions...