I wonder how this might effect the DNA testing we are now doing to find family. And how would one express this in a family tree? Will cousins of the donor egg show up in the DNA testing?
A baby boy with genetic information from three parents has been born with the help of a controversial new in vitro fertilization technique. The procedure, called mitochondrial transfer, was created to prevent women with genetic mutations from passing along devastating diseases to their children. The first beneficiaries were a Jordanian couple who had lost two previous children and four pregnancies to Leigh syndrome, a fatal disorder that affects the developing nervous system. To enable them to have a healthy baby, New York–based fertility specialist Dr. John Zhang took the nucleus from one of the woman’s eggs and inserted it into a healthy donor’s egg that had had its own nucleus removed. The resulting egg contains the donor’s mitochondria but genetic information from the mother that will determine traits like eye and hair color; it was then fertilized with sperm from the father. About 99.9 percent of the embryo’s DNA came from his mother and father, with a tiny percentage from the donor mitochondria. The boy, now 6 months old, is healthy, but his birth has sparked criticism, since three-parent embryo techniques are banned in the U.S. because of fears they might lead to genetic abnormalities. Zhang performed the procedure in Mexico, and tells New Scientist he was justified in what he did. “To save lives is the ethical thing to do,” he said.
Taken from the October 14th edition to the Week Magazine.
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