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 Emma McDonald Kennedy
| 09.25.2025
In the leadup to the 2024 election, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to make IVF more accessible. He made the commitment central to his campaign, even referring to himself as the “father of IVF.” In his first month in office, Trump issued an executive order promising to expand IVF access. The order set a 90-day deadline for policy recommendations for “lowering costs and reducing barriers to IVF,” although it didn’t make any substantive reproductive healthcare policy changes.
The response to the...
Sir Francis Galton, 1890s, by Eveleen Myers (née Tennant)
npg.org
Public Domain via Wikipedia
As has been discussed in recent issues of Biopolitical Times (1, 2), there are, increasingly, companies that claim to be selling parents better babies by selecting the “best” embryos. These services don’t come cheap – think $50,000, or even more, for embryo testing, plus perhaps as much again for IVF and concomitant services. To most of us, that is extremely expensive...
By Margaux MacColl, The San Francisco Standard | 09.17.2025
Designer babies are coming soon to an IVF clinic near you.
Nucleus Genomics, founded by Kian Sadeghi in 2020, when he was just 20, got its start analyzing genomes to weigh a person’s risk of everything from cancer to ADHD...
By Marianne Lamers, NEMO Kennislink [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 09.23.2025
Een rijtje gespreide vulva’s gaapt de bezoeker aan. Zó ziet een bevalling eruit, en zó een baarmoeder met foetus. Een zwangerschap, maar dan zonder zwangere vrouw, gestript van zorgen, gêne en pijn. De zwangerschapsmodellen en oefenbekkens, te zien in de...