UK’s first three-parent babies likely to be conceived in 2017

Methods for replacing the abnormal mitochondria in their eggs might not always work, but are safer than existing techniques for selecting embryos and so should be allowed, says a key scientific report. 

The first ever use of mitochondrial replacement therapy to prevent children inheriting disease was in 2015. A US team carried out the procedure in Mexico for a Jordanian couple, and an apparently healthy baby was born earlier this year, New Scientist revealed in September.

But most countries either have no specific regulations, as is the case in Mexico, or do not currently allow the technique, like the US. After years of consideration, the UK is set to become the first nation to formally approve the method.

Last year, the UK parliament voted to allow mitochondrial replacement providing the relevant regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryo Authority, judged it safe. The HFEA then commissioned the scientific report on the technique, which has now recommended its approval.

The final decision will be made at a meeting on 15 December. Assuming the HFEA does approve it, applications will then be decided case by case. “No other fertility technology has been subjected to this degree of scrutiny,” says Peter Braude at King’s College London, one of the report’s authors.

All the cells in our body contain lots of energy-producing mitochondria, which are inherited from our mother. If a high proportion of mitochondria in each cell are abnormal, children develop severe and often fatal diseases.