What We Know About Three-Parent In VitroFertilization

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held a public meeting in late February to consider experimental new techniques that would modify human eggs or embryos in an attempt to allow women with severely mutated mitochondrial DNA to have a child that would not inherit the disorders that can be caused by those mutations. The meeting also considered the use of similar techniques for cases of infertility.

The numerous concerns raised during the two-day meeting made it clear that there are still gaping holes in the data and countless issues to work through. But a strange thing happened: Many people from across the political and professional spectrum unexpectedly found common ground. Apparently most people can agree that anyone who hopes to wield that kind of power carries the burden of proof that their technique works, that it would be safe, and that there are no better alternatives.

As of right now, the case for these new technologies does not look very strong.

The procedures, of which there are a couple variations, have been called everything from “mitochondrial manipulation” to “three-parent IVF...