Safety Concerns Remain Over Three-Person IVF
By Ted Morrow,
The Guardian
| 07. 22. 2014
Untitled Document
Later this year, parliament is expected to debate a change to the law that would allow a reproductive therapy called mitochondrial replacement (MR) into fertility clinics. A recent review of evidence by the UK fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, stated that this experimental technique is "not unsafe". But while the aim of the procedure is noble – to eliminate human mitochondrial diseases, which affect around 1 in 4,000 people – a number of important safety concerns remain unresolved.
Evolutionary theory predicts a mismatch between the DNA in the donor's mitochondria and the mother's nuclear DNA, with potentially serious and unpredictable consequences for any embryo created using MR, an issue my colleagues and I wrote about last year. When MR is carried out experimentally, it has been shown to alter the metabolism and cognitive ability of mice. In other species it results in male sterility, reduced survival, accelerated ageing and changes the expression of many hundreds of genes. But there is a lack of data from species more closely related to humans...
Related Articles
By Jeffrey Gettleman and Maya Tekeli, The New York Times | 09.24.2025
For some Greenlanders, sorry isn’t enough.
The prime minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, made a special visit Wednesday to Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, to apologize in person for a traumatic chapter in Greenlandic history, when Danish doctors forced birth control on...
GeneWatch UK has prepared a briefing on the genetic modification of nature for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Congress in October 2025
The upcoming Congress claims to be “where the world comes together to set priorities and drive conservation and sustainable development action.” A major concern for those on the outside is that the Congress may advance plans to develop and encourage the use of synthetic biology in nature conservation. This could at first glance sound like...
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...
By Charmayne Allison, ABC News | 09.21.2025
It has been seven years since Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui made an announcement that shocked the world's scientists.
He had made the world's first gene-edited babies.
Through rewriting DNA in twin girls' embryos, the man who would later be dubbed...