A Baby From Three

Within a year, the world could see the first of what’s being described as the three-parent baby. And it’s one of mankind’s riskiest endeavours

There’s currently tension within the world’s scientific community. Groups are hurling accusations at each other — ranging from manipulation of data, blatant disregard for human life and for having the sort of enthusiasm that kills off any lab-based endeavour. Whilst one group prepares to announce to the world a life-changing procedure, the other maintains that we have collectively jumped the gun.

All this over a baby… the first ever to be born as a result of modification, rather than just natural progression — a child born from three different humans.

What it’s all about
The idea is simple. A procedure will replace faulty, trouble-causing DNA in the mother’s egg with healthy DNA from a donor woman allowing the child to possess, for the first time in our evolutionary history, genetic inputs from two mothers and one father. Proponents of this technique believe an injection of healthy donor DNA will cancel out life-threatening genetic conditions...