IVF to three people gives eight health in good health without mitochondrial disease

An unconventional approach to reproduction would have reduced the risk of metabolic disease.

In vitro fertilization to three people (IVF), a new concept developed by scientists from New Castle, in the United Kingdom, has led to the birth of eight healthy children.

In the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers found that pathogenic variants of Mitochondrial DNA (DNA) are a “common cause” of severe – and often fatal – hereditary metabolic diseases.

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This DNA in the mitochondria of the mother can cause “harmful mutations” in children, which can cause diseases that affect the tissues of the heart, the brain and the muscles, according to the journal Nature.

An IVF technique to three people led to the delivery of eight healthy babies to the United Kingdom (istock)

At the Newcastle Fertility Center, 22 women with pathogenic DNA variants underwent a “pronuclear transfer”, in which they received a mitochondrial donation.

This involved the transfer of the nucleus of a fertilized egg with “defective mitochondria” in a donor cell with healthy mitochondria, detailed nature.

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The result includes the nuclear DNA of the biological mother and the father, as well as the mitochondrial DNA of the separate egg donor.

From this, eight children were born in good health, without levels or low levels of DNA detected in their blood.

The approach involved the transfer of the nucleus of a fertilized egg with “defective mitochondria” in a donor cell with healthy mitochondria. (David L. Ryan / The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

The researchers noted that a child had developed hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol) and cardiac arrhythmia (irregular heart rate) – because the child’s mother had hyperlipidemia during pregnancy – but both conditions responded to treatment.

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Another child has developed infantile myoclonic epilepsy – a rare type of epilepsy that generally affects infants between 6 months and 3 years old – which ended in a “spontaneous remission”.

“At the time of this report, all children have made progress in normal development,” noted the researchers.

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Dr. Zev Williams, director of the Columbia University Fertility Center in New York, said the latter research “marks an important step”.

“The expansion of the range of reproductive options … will allow more couples to pursue safe and healthy pregnancies,” he said in an interview with Fox News Digital.

This new science “will allow more couples to pursue safe and healthy pregnancies”, noted a fertility expert from Columbia. (istock)

In a press briefing, Robert McFarland, a pediatric neurologist at Newcastle University, who co-directed one of the studies, would have noted the “cautious optimism” of the results.

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“Seeing babies born at the end of this is incredible, and knowing that it will not be a mitochondrial disease at the end of this,” he said.

Fox News Digital contacted study researchers to comment.