Sorry Mr. Bee, wasn't sure exactly where to put this one. Maybe you can move it if you find a good spot? I work in healthcare and this is an article that was emailed to me while I was out on maternity leave. It's an interesting idea with many people probably for and against it. I don't want to talk about my opinions, I just thought I would share the information, as I hadn't noticed it on here. I believe there are a few mothers especially on IVF boards who might be interested to hear about this. My apologies if someone else has already shared this article.

Three parents and a disease-free baby: The upside of having three genetic parents

October 02, 2013

The U.K. government will allow scientists to create babies using DNA from three different parents—a positive development, according to some researchers, for parents with mitochondrial diseases.

The controversial procedure—also called mitochondrial replacement—is possible through in vitro fertilization (IVF). Mitochondrial diseases like muscular dystrophy affect about one in 5,000 people worldwide, so only a very small group of people would be interested in such a procedure, Virginia Hughes writes in Popular Science. The procedure would "be performed at a few select clinics in the U.K. and will be carefully monitored...[a]nd if not safe, it will most likely be banned."

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Still, some scientists warn that the procedure may carry safety risks and bioethicists say the availability of such a procedure to the public could be "a step toward designer babies and eugenics," Hughes writes.

How it works
Each person has a nuclear genome—which takes half of its DNA from your mom and half from your dad. But each person also has a mitochondrial genome, which has its own DNA but doesn't affect your appearance or personality traits like nuclear genomes do. Mitochondrial genomes also are inherited entirely from your female parent.

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In the mitochondrial replacement IVF method, scientists take an egg from a female donor, remove its nuclear DNA, and leave behind the egg's mitochondria. Then, they add it to the female parent's nuclear DNA and the father's genetic material.

Hughes concludes that although "reproductive technologies have the potential to create biological problems, they're far more likely to prevent them," adding that the world should not "let our fears get in the way of medical progress" (Hughes, Popular Science, 9/30).