In recent news, we have seen that a baby boy who has three (yes, you read that right) biological parents, is now five months old. However, the public has just recently learned of this little miracle. Some people are outraged over this new technique, while the rest of us are excited for the bright future that is science and are elated for the parents.
Here's a short recap of the story:
A wife and husband from Jordan have been married for 20 years. During this marriage, all six of their attempts to have a family have failed in four miscarriages; two were born with Leigh syndrome, one lived six years and the other, eight months. With the help of doctors and researchers, the couple found out that their fertility problems were due to a genetic mutation in the mother's mitochondria (yes, that organelle you call the "powerhouse of the cell" but is so much more). Our mitochondria hold extrachromosomal DNA with 37 genes that we inherit from our mothers and one of these 37 genes held the mutation for Leigh syndrome in this case.
So, how did they solve their fertility problems?
Dr. John Zhang, who's nothing short of a genius, along with his team from New Hope Fertility Center in New York strived to give this couple a healthy baby. They needed to have a donor egg in order to have a child because of the mother's known mitochondrial mutation. There is more than one method to the "three-parent" technique, none of which are approved in the US. However in the UK, the pronuclear transfer method is approved but since it requires the discarding of two embryos, the Muslim parents chose to ask for a different method, called the spindle nuclear transfer. The procedure was done in Mexico where Dr. Zhang says, "There are no rules." In this method, the nucleus from the donor egg is replaced with the nucleus of the mother's egg and then fertilized with the father's sperm. After implantation, the embryo grew and a baby was born in April of 2016.
Why is this method looked down upon?
Good question, because I can't come up with a single answer that makes sense. In the 1990s, there was a failed attempt at this method and that is when it became banned in the US. But let's be real for a second, this is 2016 and scientific technology has vastly advanced in roughly twenty-five years. Hopefully, this success will change the mindset of some lawmakers. There is also an ethical problem with this method, some people claim. They ask, "Why don't you adopt?" or "Why can't you just get a surrogate?" Well here's my question to these people: Why can't you let the parents choose how they want to start their family? Be thankful you have it easy when it comes to fertility.
My final thoughts on this case are congratulations to the family, I hope your son is as tough as you and I'm even more excited and hopeful for the future of science.
