United Kingdom has announced draft regulations to go ahead
with the highly contentious “three parent IVF technique” thus becoming the first
country to support a ground- breaking technique of preventing life-threatening
genetic disorders. The name three parent babies itself sounds unethical and
just for the similar reason, debates are fomenting in US about legalising this
new trend of having designer babies involving three parents.
The basic aim of this pioneering technique developed by Prof
Doug Turnball of the New Castle University was to prevent the transfer of the maternal
defective mitochondrial DNA to the offspring. A fertilised egg has nuclear DNA
containing a copy of genes from each of the parents and the mitochondrial DNA
is outside the nucleus transferred directly from the mother to offspring as the
mitochondria of the sperm are usually destroyed by the egg after fertilisation.
Mitochondria are the popularly known as the power houses of cells. They contain
tiny amount of DNA and codes for 37 genes. Any defect or mutation in the mitochondrial
DNA would result in diseases usually affecting the organs which utilise more
energy like the muscles, cerebrum or nerves. These include Type 2 diabetes,
Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, atherosclerotic heart diseases, stroke and
cancer.
The new pronuclear transfer technique would confer the women
with the diseased mitochondria with an opportunity to have children free of mitochondrial
myopathies (diseases). The procedure involves the conventional IVF (Invitro
Fertilisation) following which the pronuclei are removed from the fertilised
egg and are transferred into egg of donor woman with healthy mitochondria whose
nucleus has been removed. Thus the defective DNA of the parent mitochondria can
be eliminated. It was found that 1 in 6500 babies inherit mitochondrial diseases.
This number stands at 1 in 5000 in US. Another technique maternal spindle
transfer is also in vogue. In this method the genetic material between the
mother’s egg and donor’s egg are swapped before fertilisation.
This technique would result in a baby having nuclear genetic
material (DNA) from both the parents and a tiny amount of mitochondrial DNA from
the female donor. This roughly translates into 1.05 mts of DNA in nucleus and
0.0054mm of mitochondrial DNA. Some scientists of the New Castle University viewed
that is it akin to changing the battery of a laptop. The hard-disc of the
computer refers to the nuclear DNA obtained from the parent remains unchanged
but the power source stands replaced. This technique has been backed by several
animal researchers who believe that this technique is potentially safe. While
some people severely condemn the new procedure as it involves tampering of a
natural process. The Government of Britain has decided to extend its support to
the technique which enables the parents to have a healthy baby from this
treatment within two years. Some view that U.K have intentions of extending its
hegemony in the field of genetics and IVF stretching. UK is revered for its two
illustrious contributions to life sciences. They are unravelling the structure
of DNA in 1953 and for producing first test tube baby Louise Brown in 1978.
Following Britain’s lead, a series of public debates and
discussions of the scientific community are catching up in US. Even the Food
and Drug Administration started focussing on this technique. In US similar technique
was excelled by Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a researcher at Oregan Health and Science
University. He successfully produced five healthy monkeys and had proposals for
using it on humans. But there was a massive outcry from scientists, religious
groups and ethicists who vociferously rejected the idea of extending this
treatment to humans. As they believed that it might result in the resurgence of
designer babies where parents would
start selecting for intelligence, physical features and other characteristics.
Further, they opined that a radical experimentation on future children and a
decision on idea of this magnitude should be open for a larger public debate.
The advisory committee of the FDA is still not convinced with
the propitious outcomes of the new technique and hence averse to the idea
extending this technique to humans. Whereas the scientific panel in Britain
could garner greater support for this revolutionary technique which could end
the misery of parents and enable them to have healthy babies. The practise of
technique comes with a precondition that if approved all the events should be
very closely monitored and regulated. Draft regulations are expected to be
placed before Parliament this year where they would be debated and voted.
More than 40 countries world over have signed treaties or
imposed tough regulations on experiments related to human genome modifications
that could be inherited. With Britain taking a call to adopt the cutting edge
technology other countries are expected to soften their stand. There are
several caveats still. The technique hasn’t passed the safety tests and so it would
be premature to go ahead with the legislation. Moreover even the social consequences
of any such experimentation haven’t been debated adequately. Though the
technique seems to be ground-breaking but societal concerns would stand out to
be a major hiccup.
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