Recently Britain has passed a law permitting 3 parent childr

Recently Britain has passed a law permitting “3 parent” children from in vitro fertilization. What is a “three parent” birth, and what problem does it solve?

Solution

3 parent babies:-

The idea of 3 parent babies is also known as the mitochondrial replacement therapy. In this technique, the mitochondrial DNA from the mother is replaced by another woman, in case there is some fault in the mother\'s DNA. The replacement is made in the mother\'s egg. This is a form of in vitro fertilisation in which either pro-nuclear transfer or maternal spindle transfer is used for replacing the mitochondrial DNA. Since, the genetic compostion of the baby includes excerpts from three parents, the offspring is called a three parent baby.

The mitochondrial DNA is inherited from the mother. There are a few number of people who are found to have a fault in their mitochondrial DNA, whichn contain 37 set of genes. If there is a fault in the mitochondria, the affect of the disease is seen from early childhood and sometimes fatal before reaching adulthood, depending on the type of disease. Such a faulty gene can affect the brain, muscles , heart and liver, as these are the parts of the body that require high energy input. Other medical conditions include Parkinson’s, deafness, failing eyesight, epilepsy and diabetes.

This technique solves the problem of genetic mutations and births having genetic defects. If, a rare mutation as this happens, a Mitochondrial replacement therapy can be performed so that the child born is devoid of these conditions.