"Three-Person IVF" Update Reveals How Little We Know
By Jessica Cussins,
The Huffington Post
| 06. 05. 2014
Three-person IVF is a critical departure from the traditional kind. This new and biologically extreme technique, which has generated scientific and bioethical controversy on both sides of the Atlantic, would combine genetic material from one man and two women in a single embryo. It is currently prohibited in the United Kingdom, but has been heavily promoted by its developers, and the law could be changed as soon as this year to allow it to move into fertility clinics.
The technique under consideration is being proposed for women with a rare form of mitochondrial disease who wish to have an unaffected and mostly genetically related child. It requires the extraction of the nucleus from her egg or embryo followed by its reinsertion into another woman's egg or embryo. Any resulting child would inherit nuclear DNA from the intended mother and mitochondrial DNA from an anonymous egg provider.
The UK's fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has just released an update on the safety and efficacy of this "three-person IVF." The HFEA report will help inform the upcoming Parliamentary...
Related Articles
The Center for Genetics and Society is delighted to recommend the current edition of GMWatch Review – Number 589. UK-based GMWatch, a long-standing ally, was founded in 1998 by Jonathan Matthews as an independent organization seeking to counter the enormous corporate political power and propaganda of the GMO industry and its supporters. Matthews and Claire Robinson are its directors and managing editors.
CGS works to ensure that social justice, equity, human rights, and democratic governance are front...
If you’ve been online or caught the news in the past few weeks, you’ve probably come across Sydney Sweeney, her “great genes jeans,” and much debate over whether they reflect a resurgence of eugenics in American politics and culture.
In case you missed it, here’s what happened. At the end of July, US-based clothing company American Eagle released a new ad campaign. In one ad, Sweeney breathily recites the following, while lying back to zip up her jeans:
Genes are...
By Ryan Cross, Endpoints News | 08.19.2025
Human eggs are incredibly rare cells. The ovary typically produces only 400 mature eggs across a woman’s life. But biologists in George Church’s lab at Harvard University — a group that’s never content with nature’s limits — just got a...
By Staff, National Women's Law Center | 08.13.2025
INTRODUCTION
Baby bonuses. Motherhood medals. Fertility tracking. You may have heard of these policy proposals as solutions from the Trump administration to help encourage women to have more children.
Besides falling short of ensuring that people have what they need...
