18 October 2004

Babies with three parents ahead

The Observer | UK News | :
I highlight this one because I think that it is the kind of thing that is likely to get a knee-jerk reaction orm the right-wing Christian community. The story, it seems to me, is far more innocent than the headline would imply:
"by implanting the nucleus of an embryo of a mother with defective mitochondria into the egg of a woman with healthy mitochondria, the resultant foetus will be free of the destructive genetic diseases [that can be carried by mitochondrial DNA]." Iow: this is a replacement of cell nucleus into a healthy cell. THe three parent thing is that mitochdrial dna is entirely inherited from the mother and so you would produce a child genetically of its father and mother but mitochondrially of a third party. I can't really see that this is more moral complex than a blood transfusion, but we shall see.

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