Sunday Times 2
Babies with three parents could be born by 2015
The first baby with three parents could be born as early as 2015 after a landmark decision to move ahead on a controversial genetic treatment.
Britain could become the first country to sanction the creation of babies with three genetic parents, despite fears it might lead to ‘designer babies’.
The Government will publish draft regulations later this year that will bring techniques a step closer to giving women affected by devastating hereditary diseases the chance to have healthy children.
The techniques involve replacing defective DNA in the mother’s egg with material from a donor egg.
The resulting healthy child would effectively have two mothers and a father.
For the first time the ‘germ line’ of inherited DNA from the mother would be altered which, critics say, marks a turning point in the ethics of test-tube babies.
But the Government’s chief medical officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, said the alteration did not affect fundamental DNA that determines an individual’s make-up such as facial features and eye colour.
If MPs approve the regulations at the end of next year, the first patients could be assessed and approved for treatment in 2015.
© Daily Mail, London
Follow @timesonlinelk
comments powered by Disqus