Latest news with #mitochondrial diseases
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Health
- Irish Times
Eight healthy babies born in UK after IVF using DNA from three people
Doctors in the UK have announced the birth of eight healthy babies after performing a groundbreaking procedure that creates IVF embryos with DNA from three people to prevent the children from inheriting incurable genetic disorders. The mothers were all high risk for passing on life-threatening diseases to their babies due to mutations in their mitochondria, the tiny structures that sit inside cells and provide the power they need to function. News of the births and the children's health has been long-anticipated by doctors around the world after the UK changed the law to allow the procedure in 2015. The fertility regulator granted the first licence in 2017 to a fertility clinic at Newcastle University where doctors pioneered the technique. The four boys and four girls, including one set of identical twins, were born to seven women and have no signs of the mitochondrial diseases they were at risk of inheriting. One further pregnancy is ongoing. READ MORE Prof Doug Turnbull, who was part of the team that spent more than two decades developing the procedure, said the healthy births were reassuring for researchers and the families affected. 'You are inevitably thinking it's great for the patients and that is a relief,' he said. Prof Mary Herbert, another senior member of the team, said to have eight healthy babies from the procedure was 'rewarding for all of us'. The vast majority of a human's 20,000 genes are curled up in the nucleus of nearly every cell in the body. But the fluid surrounding the nucleus contains hundreds to thousands of mitochondria that carry their own set of 37 genes. Mutations in these genes can impair or completely disable mitochondria with catastrophic effects. People inherit all their mitochondria from their biological mother. Mutations in the tiny battery-like structures can affect all the children a woman has. The first symptoms of mitochondrial disease tend to appear in early childhood as energy-hungry organs such as the brain, heart and muscles start to fail. Many affected children have developmental delays, require wheelchairs and die young. About one in 5,000 newborns are affected. Mitochondrial donation treatment, or MDT, aims to prevent children from inheriting mutated mitochondria. The procedure involves fertilising the mother's egg with the father's sperm and then transferring the genetic material from the nucleus into a fertilised healthy donor egg that has had its own nucleus removed. This creates a fertilised egg with a full set of chromosomes from the parents, but healthy mitochondria from the donor. The egg is then implanted into the womb to establish a pregnancy. The first eight babies born to the procedure are described in two papers in the New England Journal of Medicine. All eight were healthy at birth. One child developed a urinary infection that was treated, and another developed muscle jerks that resolved on their own. A third child developed high blood fat and a disturbance in their heart rhythm, which was also treated. The condition is thought to be related to a medical issue the mother had in pregnancy. Genetic tests showed that the babies had no or low levels of mutant mitochondria, with some carried over from the mother during the procedure. While the levels are considered too low to cause disease, it suggests the procedure could still be improved. Some women who carry the genetic disorders produce eggs with varying levels of faulty mitochondria. For them, a technique called pre-implantation genetic testing can be used to select eggs for IVF that have a very low chance of passing on a disease. Other women do not have this choice because all their eggs have high levels of mutations. — the Guardian
South China Morning Post
5 days ago
- Health
- South China Morning Post
Healthy babies born in UK using pioneering 3-person IVF technique
The results of the much-awaited UK trial were published in several papers in the New England Journal of Medicine. Some have called the result of this process 'three-parent babies', though researchers have pushed back at this term because only roughly 0.1 per cent of the newborn's DNA comes from the donor. In 2015, Britain became the first country to approve an in vitro fertilisation (IVF) technique that uses a small amount of healthy mitochondrial DNA from the egg of a donor - along with the mother's egg and father's sperm. One out of every 5,000 births is affected by mitochondrial diseases, which cannot be treated, and include symptoms such as impaired vision, diabetes and muscle wasting. The findings were hailed as a breakthrough which raises hopes that women with mutations in their mitochondrial DNA could one day have children without passing debilitating or deadly diseases on to the children. Eight healthy babies have been born in the UK using a new IVF technique that successfully reduced their risk of inheriting genetic diseases from their mothers, the results of a world-first trial said Wednesday. One out of every 5,000 births is affected by mitochondrial diseases, which cannot be treated. File photo: Shutterstock Out of 22 women to undergo the treatment at the Newcastle Fertility Centre in northeast England, eight babies were born. The four boys and four girls now range from under six months to over two years old. The amount of mutated mitochondrial DNA – which causes disease – was reduced by 95-100 per cent in six of the babies, according to the research. For the other two newborns, the amount fell by 77–88 per cent, which is below the range that causes disease. This indicates the technique was 'effective in reducing transmission' of diseases between mother and child, one of the studies said. The eight children are currently healthy, though one had a disturbance of their heart's rhythm which was successfully treated, the researchers said. Their health will be followed up over the coming years to see if problems arise. Nils-Goran Larsson, a Swedish reproductive expert not involved in the research, hailed the 'breakthrough'. The new technique offers a 'very important reproductive option' for families affected by 'devastating' mitochondrial diseases, he added. Mitochondrial donation remains controversial and has not been approved in many countries, including the United States and France. Religious leaders have opposed the procedure because it involves the destruction of human embryos. Other opponents have expressed fears it could pave the way for genetically engineered 'designer babies'. An ethical review carried out by the UK's independent Nuffield Council on Bioethics was 'instrumental' in conducting the new research, the council's director Danielle Hamm said Wednesday. Peter Thompson, head of the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority which approved the procedure, said only people with a 'very high risk' of passing on a mitochondrial disease would be eligible for the treatment. Ethical concerns have also been raised over the use of mitochondrial donation for infertility in Greece and Ukraine. French mitochondrial disease specialist Julie Stefann said that 'it is a question of the risk-benefit ratio: for a mitochondrial disease, the benefit is obvious'. 'In the context of infertility, it has not been proven,' she added. Oxford University reproductive genetics expert Dagan Wells observed that 'some scientists will be a little disappointed that so much time and effort has, so far, only led to the birth of eight children'. Among the children being closely monitored are three that showed some signs of what is known as 'reversal', which is still little understood. It is 'a phenomenon where the therapy initially succeeds in producing an embryo with very few defective mitochondria, but by the time the child is born the proportion of abnormal mitochondria in its cells has significantly increased,' he explained. Advertisement
RNZ News
5 days ago
- Health
- RNZ News
Eight babies born using DNA of three people cutting genetic disease risk
By Daniel Lawler and Julien Dury , AFP One out of every 5000 births is affected by mitochondrial diseases, which cannot be treated. (File pic) Photo: 123rf Eight healthy babies have been born in the UK using a new IVF technique that successfully reduced their risk of inheriting genetic diseases from their mothers, the results of a world-first trial. The findings were hailed as a breakthrough which raises hopes that women with mutations in their mitochondrial DNA could one day have children without passing debilitating or deadly diseases on to the children. One out of every 5000 births is affected by mitochondrial diseases, which cannot be treated, and include symptoms such as impaired vision, diabetes and muscle wasting. In 2015, Britain became the first country to approve an in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) technique that uses a small amount of healthy mitochondrial DNA from the egg of a donor - along with the mother's egg and father's sperm. Some have called the result of this process "three-parent babies", though researchers have pushed back at this term because only roughly 0.1 percent of the newborn's DNA comes from the donor. The results of the much-awaited UK trial were published in several papers in the New England Journal of Medicine . A lab worker checks the result of an IVF procedure. (File pic) Photo: Out of 22 women to undergo the treatment at the Newcastle Fertility Centre in northeast England, eight babies were born. The four boys and four girls now range from under six months to over two years old. The amount of mutated mitochondrial DNA - which causes disease - was reduced by 95-100 percent in six of the babies, according to the research. For the other two newborns, the amount fell by 77-88 percent, which is below the range that causes disease. This indicates the technique was "effective in reducing transmission" of diseases between mother and child, one of the studies said. The eight children are currently healthy, though one had a disturbance of their heart's rhythm which was successfully treated, the researchers said. Their health will be followed up over the coming years to see if problems arise. Nils-Goran Larsson, a Swedish reproductive expert not involved in the research, hailed the "breakthrough". The new technique offered a "very important reproductive option" for families affected by "devastating" mitochondrial diseases, he added. Mitochondrial donation remains controversial and has not been approved in many countries, including the United States and France. Religious leaders have opposed the procedure because it involves the destruction of human embryos. Other opponents have expressed fears it could pave the way for genetically engineered "designer babies". An ethical review carried out by the UK's independent Nuffield Council on Bioethics was "instrumental" in conducting the new research, the council's director Danielle Hamm said on Wednesday. Peter Thompson, head of the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority which approved the procedure, said only people with a "very high risk" of passing on a mitochondrial disease would be eligible for the treatment. Ethical concerns have also been raised over the use of mitochondrial donation for infertility in Greece and Ukraine. French mitochondrial disease specialist Julie Stefann told AFP that "it is a question of the risk-benefit ratio: for a mitochondrial disease, the benefit is obvious". "In the context of infertility, it has not been proven," she added. Oxford University reproductive genetics expert Dagan Wells observed that "some scientists will be a little disappointed that so much time and effort has, so far, only led to the birth of eight children". Among the children being closely monitored are three that showed some signs of what is known as "reversal", which is still little understood. It is "a phenomenon where the therapy initially succeeds in producing an embryo with very few defective mitochondria, but by the time the child is born the proportion of abnormal mitochondria in its cells has significantly increased", he explained. -AFP
