![A baby with 3 DNA has just been born in Mexico](https://img.passeportsante.net/1000x526/2016-09-29/i38118-l-europe-approuve-une-therapie-genique-pour-les-enfants.jpg)
September 29, 2016.
It is not clear whether to salute the medical prowess or to worry about such advances from an ethical point of view: a baby conceived with 3 DNA has indeed been born in Mexico. A world first.
A process that is only authorized in Great Britain
According to information revealed by the newspaper New Scientist and confirmed by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), a baby carrying the DNA of three people has just been born. To prevent the transmission of an inherited disease from mother to child, thescientists used the DNA of two women. A process which is only authorized in Great Britain and which is already under debate.
The baby’s mother carried the gene responsible for Leigh syndrome, a progressive neurological disease that she had already passed on to her first two children who died aged 8 months and 6 years. To get around the disease, the researchers extracted the nucleus from the mother’s oocyte and implanted it in another woman’s oocyte, which was then fertilized by the father’s sperm and re-implanted in the mother’s uterus.
A process that raises many questions
If the mother has gone to the end of her pregnancy, it is still unclear whether this process will allow the child to grow normally. Which raises real ethical questions. Similar experiments had been carried out in the United States in the 1990s, and not all of the children born from these experiences developed properly.
Objections to which the president of the ASRM does not want to pay attention. According to him, these works ” represent an important advance in reproductive medicine “. ” If further research establishes the safety and efficacy of this genetic material transfer technique, it could be considered as an option for women at risk of transmitting mitochondrial diseases to their children. “, He congratulated himself.