‘Three parent family’ almost possible

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Scientists in Japan are a step closer to producing a controversial ‘three parent baby' after they successfully fertilised an egg with two biological mothers.
 
Researchers at St Mother Hospital in Kitakyushu used eggs from young donors to repair damaged eggs of older women in order to increase their chances of fertilisation. According to news reports in the Telegraph, they have not yet used the eggs to produce babies, but they have injected them with sperm to produce an early stage embryo in the laboratory.
 
The development is likely to provoke an ethical storm as critics believe it could lead to genetically modified children.

'If we could transfer these constructed new embryos, I believe the success rate would be high,' Atsushi Tanaka, the lead author told the New Scientist.

Under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, this kind of treatment - or any that involves genetically modifying an egg - remains illegal in Britain but the government has put in place a framework to relax the rules if and when science shows it can have positive impact on health.

What do you think? Would you want to work with another woman if it helped you fall pregnant? Are three parent families the way of the future? Have your say in the box below...

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Thursday 12 November 2009

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