Three-Parent Baby Pioneer Jamie Grifo: ‘The Brits Will be Ahead of the World’
By Steve Connor,
The Independent
| 01. 16. 2015
Untitled Document
The fertility doctor who created the world’s first “three-parent” embryos which led to a woman becoming pregnant with twins has insisted that the technique is safe despite the mother losing both prematurely-born babies.
Jamie Grifo, the programme director of the New York University Fertility Centre, supervised the only IVF treatment that led to a pregnancy with embryos conceived by the same technique being considered by Britain’s fertility watchdog, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).
The 30-year-old Chinese woman underwent the IVF treatment at the SunYat-Sen University Hospital in Guangzhou, China, and became pregnant in 2003 with triplets after five “three-parent” IVF embryos were transferred into her womb.
Doctors subsequently removed one of the foetuses to give the other two babies a better chance of survival but both these twins died after being born prematurely at 24 and 29 weeks respectively.
When Dr Grifo reported her case at a fertility conference later in 2003, he was widely denounced for carrying out an unsafe experiment of the “three-parent” technique and was prohibited from carrying out further IVF trials.
However...
Related Articles
By Dr. Coco Newton, Progress Educational Trust | 03.30.2026
Have you ever wondered what it means to have dozens of half-siblings across the world – or to never know where half of your genetic identity comes from? A recent episode of Zembla explores the human consequences of the global...
By Marcelo Jauregui-Volpe, Wired | 04.24.2026
Two companies that launched last year with plans to create gene-edited babies have already shut down, citing money issues and internal conflict.
One of them, Manhattan Genomics of New York, closed abruptly shortly after announcing a team of scientific advisers...
By Alexandre Piquard, Le Monde [cites Katie Hasson] | 04.27.2026
"Si on en prouve la sûreté, nous croyons que l’édition préventive du génome pourrait être l’une des technologies de santé les plus importantes du siècle. » Lucas Harrington explique ainsi le but de son entreprise Preventive : créer des bébés génétiquement modifiés...
By Abby Vesoulis, Mother Jones | 04.18.2026
Two years ago, we devoted an entire issue to the rise of the American oligarchy. Since then, our oligarchic system has become more entrenched and pervasive, revolving around a small crew of tech titans whose quest for wealth and...
