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The first babies created with DNA from three different people were born in the United Kingdom through a groundbreaking IVF procedure, the Guardian reports.
Mitochondrial donation treatment (MDT) aims to prevent babies from inheriting rare genetic diseases as it uses tissue from the eggs of healthy female donors to create IVF embryos free from harmful mutations that their mothers carry, specifically in women with issues linked to mitochondria. The process places genetic material from the egg of the mother with mitochondria issues and transfers it to a donor egg or embryo of a healthy mitochondria, with the genetic material from the donated egg accounting for less than 1% of the child as the rest of its key DNA has been removed.
"Less than five" babies were reported to have been born through this process, according to regulators with the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, who attempted to avoid the families being identified, via the New York Post.
The U.K. became the first country to permit the procedure after it was passed by legislation in 2015 and Britain's Newcastle University became the first and only facility to authorize MDT in 2017, with the first cases being approved in 2018. The process aims to prohibit genetic defects from being passed on from the mother to child, which includes muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, heart problems and intellectual disabilities. An estimated one in 200 children are born with a mitochondrial disorder in the United Kingdom.
A total of 32 patients have been approved to receive the MDT treatment, according to the New York Post.