The story so far: The announcement that a baby was born using three persons’ DNA in the UK on Thursday caused the stir that news of this kind was expected to evoke. The baby has three parents, technically, deriving the mitochondria from a donor apart from genetic material (DNA) from biological parents. Pioneering technology was used to facilitate this, in order to prevent the child from inheriting the mother’s mitochondrial disease.
What is mitochondrial disease?
The baby carries most of its DNA from its parents, and a minor per cent from the donor, whose mitochondria has been used while fertilising the egg. Why did the baby need ‘three parents’?
