World’s First Three Parent Baby Is A Boy

The world’s first three parent baby is an infant boy called Abrahim who carries the DNA of both his parents plus a tiny amount of genetic code from a third donor.

Abrahim’s conception and birth was made possible by an international collaboration of scientists and fertility experts in what has been described as a ‘milestone’ medical breakthrough.

His parents are Jordanian and a US medical team performed the egg editing procedure in Mexico using a technique which had been developed by UK scientists.

Genetic

The medical team combined the genes of three people – his parents and female egg donor – so that Abrahim could be born without a genetic condition which claimed the lives of his parents’ first two children.

The boy’s mother carries the genes for a neurological condition called Leigh’s syndrome which attacks the nervous system. Her first child died from the condition aged six and her second child only lived for eight months.

Leigh’s syndrome gradually inhibits a child’s mental and physical abilities from the moment they are born and sufferers typically die due to lung failure.

Abrahim’s mother has the defective genes in part of her cell structure called the mitochondria. In this case, one in four of the mother’s mitochondria have the mutation that causes Leigh’s syndrome.

Nucleus

The technique which allowed Abrahim to be born free of the disease involved taking the nucleus of his mother’s egg and transferring it into the outer part of a donor parent’s egg from which the nucleus had been removed.

It is the outer part of the egg which contains the mitochondria so it was hoped the technique would allow for a perfectly healthy child to be born once the egg was fertilized with the father’s sperm.

The technique has been carefully developed by UK scientists years, largely because they have had to get permission from the embryology regulator every step of the way.

It has yet to be used clinically in Britain and is not legal in the US which is why the procedure was carried out in Mexico where controls are not as strict.

Milestone

“This is a milestone technique,” said Dr John Zhang, who led the medical team from New York City’s New Hope Fertility Center. He added: “It proves for the first time that genetic information from three people can avoid disease. We now know reconstitution of human eggs can produce a healthy baby.”

The technique which led to the birth of baby Abrahim will be showcased at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s Scientific Congress in Salt Lake City next month.

How the “three parent baby” procedure is carried out:

1. Eggs are taken from a mother with damaged mitochondria and from a donor with healthy mitochondria.

2. The nucleus from the mother’s egg is removed and saved while the nucleus from the donor egg is removed and discarded.

3. The mother’s nucleus is inserted into the donor egg with the healthy mitochondria and this is then fertilized by the father’s sperm.

The post World’s First Three Parent Baby Is A Boy appeared first on Newsline.