Experts: 3-Parent Technique Saves Baby From Deadly DNA Disorder
NEW YORK (CBSNewYorK) -- Researchers said Tuesday that the first baby in the world has been born using a controversial new technique involving DNA from three parents.
As CBS2's Dr. Max Gomez reported, the complicated procedure was used to prevent the baby from being born with a fatal genetic flaw.
"Indeed, it is revolutionary," said Dr. John Zhang of the New Hope Fertility Center.
Zhang spoke as he held the first baby conceived through a new in-vitro fertilization technique that used the DNA of three people.
The mother, whose name was withheld, carries a gene for a rare and lethal disorder called Leigh Syndrome, where the powerhouses of the cells – called mitochondria – are fatally defective.
Zhang created embryos by taking the nucleus from the egg of the mother and inserting it into an egg from a donor that had its nucleus removed.
But that donor egg had normal mitochondrial DNA -- genetic material in the tiny power plants of the cells -- creating a normal embryo. That egg was then fertilized with the father's sperm.
"This mitochondrial disease is usually a very devastating situation for the babies and the family," Zhang said.
Three-parent procedures are considered controversial. Some people call them designer babies.
"It should be done very responsibly," Zhang said. "It can't be done carelessly."
The baby is now nearly 6 months old and doing great – giving other parents with genetic struggles hope.
Two of the same mother's babies previously died of the disease.
The three-parent DNA technique is not approved in the U.S., so the parents traveled to Mexico for the procedure. But a similar technique is approved in the United Kingdom.
