New Three-Parent Baby Law ‘is Flawed and Open to Challenge’, says Senior Lawyer
        
            By Steve Connor, 
                The Independent [UK]
             | 01. 14. 2015
        
                    
                                    
                    
                                                                                                                                    
                                                                            
                              
    
  
  
    
  
          
  
      
    
             
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    The Government’s attempt to legalise so-called “three parent” babies   is open to challenge by judicial review because of serious flaws in the   proposed legislation, a senior lawyer has warned.
 
    
   
     
      Legislation to allow mitochondrial donation is either unnecessary or   invalid under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, according to   international law expert Lord Brennan QC.
 
      
    
  The written opinion, which has been passed to parliamentary   authorities, says there are “significant doubts” about the legality of   proposed regulations being introduced by the Department of Health.
 
  Lord   Brennan states: “If the regulations are approved in their current form,   they may be open to challenge by way of judicial review.”
 
  The   Government has introduced new regulations to allow mitochondrial   donation – where genetic material of two women’s eggs is merged with a   man’s sperm, to ensure women with mitochondrial defects do not pass on   mutations to their children – because it was thought that the   controversial IVF technique was specifically banned under the Human   Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008.
 
  The Act defines a   “permitted” egg or embryo as one whose “nuclear or mitochondrial...
 
 
  
 
    
    
  
   
                        
                                                                                
                 
                                                    
                            
                                  
    
  
  
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            Paula Amato & Shoukhrat Mitalipov
[OHSU News/Christine Torres Hicks]
On September 30th, a team of 21 scientists from Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) published a significant paper in Nature Communications, with a scientifically accurate but, to many, somewhat abstruse headline:
Induction of experimental cell division to generate cells with reduced chromosome ploidy
The lead authors were Shoukhrat Mitalipov, recently described here as “a push-the-envelope biologist,” and his long-term colleague Paula Amato. (Recall that in July the pair had co-published with...