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Health

U.S. University Produces Embryo With Genes From Two Women, One Man

Oct. 24, 2012 4:39pm Liz Klimas

Oregon Scientists Replace Mitochondrial DNA in Cells to Produce Embryo With Genes from Two Women, One Man

An early-stage embryo. (Image: Shutterstock.com)

NEW YORK (TheBlaze/AP) — Scientists in Oregon have created embryos with genes from one man and two women, using a provocative technique that could someday be used to prevent babies from inheriting certain rare incurable diseases. At the same time, it is raising a host of ethical issues that other countries conducting the same research are already tackling.

The researchers at Oregon Health & Sciences University said they are not using the embryos to produce children, and it is not clear when or even if this technique will be put to use. But it has already stirred a debate over its risks and ethics in Britain, where scientists did similar work a few years ago.

The British experiments, reported in 2008, led to headlines about the possibility someday of babies with three parents. But that’s an overstatement. The DNA from the second woman amounts to less than 1 percent of the embryo’s genes, and it isn’t the sort that makes a child look like Mom or Dad. The procedure is simply a way of replacing some defective genes that sabotage the normal workings of cells.

The British government is asking for public comment on the technology before it decides whether to allow its use in the future. One concern it cites is whether such DNA alteration could be an early step down a slippery slope toward “designer babies” – ordering up, say, a petite, blue-eyed girl or tall, dark-haired boy.

Questions have also arisen about the safety of the technique, not only for the baby who results from the egg, but also for the child’s descendants.

In June, an influential British bioethics group concluded that the technology would be ethical to use if proven safe and effective. An expert panel in Britain said in 2011 that there was no evidence the technology was unsafe but urged further study.

Laurie Zoloth, a bioethicist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., said in an interview that safety problems might not show up for several generations. She said she hopes the United States will follow Britain’s lead in having a wide-ranging discussion of the technology.

While the kind of diseases it seeks to fight can be terrible, “this might not be the best way to address it,” Zoloth said.

Over the past few years, scientists have reported that such experiments produced healthy monkeys and that tests in human eggs showed encouraging results. The Oregon scientists reported Wednesday that they have produced about a dozen early human embryos and found the technique is highly effective in replacing DNA.

The genes they want to replace aren’t the kind most people think of, which are found in the nucleus of cells and influence traits such as eye color and height. Rather, these genes reside outside the nucleus in energy-producing structures called mitochondria. These genes are passed along only by mothers, not fathers.

Mitochondria have their own DNA independent from DNA in the nucleus. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down solely by the mother. (Image: Wikimedia)

About 1 in every 5,000 children inherits a disease caused by defective mitochondrial genes. The defects can cause many rare diseases with a host of symptoms, including strokes, epilepsy, dementia, blindness, deafness, kidney failure and heart disease.

The new technique, if approved someday for routine use, would allow a woman to give birth to a baby who inherits her nucleus DNA but not her mitochondrial DNA. Here’s how it would work:

Doctors would need unfertilized eggs from the patient and a healthy donor. They would remove the nucleus DNA from the donor eggs and replace it with nucleus DNA from the patient’s eggs. So, they would end up with eggs that have the prospective mother’s nucleus DNA, but the donor’s healthy mitochondrial DNA.

In a report published online Wednesday by the journal Nature, Shoukhrat Mitalipov and others at OHSU report transplanting nucleus DNA into 64 unfertilized eggs from healthy donors. After fertilization, 13 eggs showed normal development and went on to form early embryos.

The researchers also reported that four monkeys born in 2009 from eggs that had DNA transplants remain healthy, giving some assurance on safety. According to Nature, the team tracked the effect on the monkeys and none were seen. But genetics specialist at the University of Melbourne David Thorburn told Nature that he would like to see more from the monkeys’ development and if they will be able to reproduce in adulthood.

Mitalipov said in an interview that the researchers hope to get federal approval to test the procedure in women, but that current restrictions on using federal money on human embryo research stand in the way of such studies. The research was funded by the university and the Leducq Foundation in Paris. Nature points out that it was privately funded as NIH funding restricts research that leads to human embryo destruction.

Dr. Douglass Turnbull of Newcastle University in Britain, whose team has transplanted DNA between eggs using a different technique, called the new research “very important and encouraging” in showing that such transplants could work.

But “clearly, safety is an issue” with either technique if it is applied to humans, he said.

Featured image via Shutterstock.com.

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Comments (95)

COFemale
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 7:27pm
What if it works, you take the DNA from one woman and mix it with the other woman and man and create a new more deadly or debilitating disease or defect? What if you don’t find out until it is too late? What if you make the new female child barren and unable to conceive? What if you make the male impotent? I don’t think we should change the natural order of conceiving. If you are that concerned, then thoroughly interview your potential mate and get their family history first. Due your own due diligence.

We do not have the right to play GOD.

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- Pontiac
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 8:40pm
  What if, what if, what if…
  
  “If you are that concerned, then thoroughly interview your potential mate and get their family history first. Due your own due diligence.”
  Unless your raped, then your S.O.L! RIGHT?
  
  Report this comment
- DisgustedinUSA
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 8:41pm
  YES!! You’re so right. I agree. Stop messing with what God has done.
  
  Report this comment
- Pontiaku
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 9:01pm
  @DisgustedinUSA
  Yeah stop curing diseases! God gave them to you! It’s all part of his “plan”! Stop playing god! You were meant to suffer from defects from birth! And if you have some hereditary genetic problem take cofemales advice and don’t have kids! Otherwise someone might have to scratch you off of their list of potential mates and wont that be embarrassing!
  
  Report this comment
- mikem1969
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 10:50pm
  cofemale, I feel the same way. They are going to keep on playing God and release hell on earth. Pontiac, certain things need to be left alone.
  
  Report this comment
- SgtB
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 11:14pm
  @Pontiak, this is not curing diseases. This is scientific experimentation on human beings in their earliest stages of life and trying to justify it by calling it a miracle cure for something that doesn’t need a cure. There are plenty of people out there who just need to accept that they are infertile and need to realize that their only other viable option for having a child of their own is adoption. And believe me, there are plenty of children that need adopting the world over. I’ve got several cousins that are adopted and not a one of them is an “unwanted” person. We need to stop; I won’t say playing God, but taking the lives of others into our own hands. Nature has been doing the planning for longer than we can comprehend and it has done quite fine by my standards. This doesn’t mean we should stop curing real disease, but I sincerely doubt that curing disease is actually what the AMA does on a daily basis. After all, if diseases were all cured, they’d be out of a job.
  
  Report this comment
- Pontiaku
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 11:48pm
  Who the hell are you people to tell other people they shouldn’t have a child with someone or cant have a guarantee they’ll have a healthy child because they lost the genetics game because of your “sky daddies plan”? If an omnipotent being has a plan then WHO ARE YOU to say this IS NOT part of it? Unless his plan is for us to suffer from heinous genetic disorders from here to the end of time… You want to talk about hell? Imagine the hell those that will inherent incurable diseases will go through because your bronze age myths have convinced you there was no “moral” way to avoid their diseases.
  
  “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” –Steven Weinberg, an American physicist:
  
  Report this comment
- TEARS FOR AMERICA
  Posted on October 25, 2012 at 7:07am
  I agree COFEMALE! God will not be mocked.
  
  Report this comment
- VerySeniorCitizen
  Posted on October 25, 2012 at 7:45am
  @ COFEMALE
  
  “We do not have the right to play GOD.”
  
  So lets QUIT with all the heart, liver, kidney, lung transplants and cancer research!
  
  Man, in the form of doctors and scientists have been ‘playing god’ ever since this world began.
  http://www.nativetech.org/cornhusk/cornhusk.html
  http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/campaign/genetically-engineered-food/crops/
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/15/gm-mosquitoes-dengue-fever-feature
  
  Report this comment
COFemale
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 7:18pm
Designer babies. I believe this should be ethically and morally wrong. Researchers should find ways to help find ways to curb or eliminate a defect, but not medically design it out.

I sometimes wonder if we try to play God, we are somehow trying to change his plan.

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- Pontiac
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 8:42pm
  [I sometimes wonder if we try to play God, we are somehow trying to change his plan.]
  According to Richard Mourdock IT’S ALL GAWDS PLAN. Otherwise we would not be able to perform these “miracle” theist spout off about.
  
  Report this comment
- VerySeniorCitizen
  Posted on October 25, 2012 at 11:10am
  If God created the world and everything in it – including man, did he NOT intend to give man the amility to create fire, the wheel, the printing press, heart transplants and yes, even avoiding genetic diseases??
  
  Oh, and since I’m on the subject. If God created everything from an empty space vacuum – then WHO or WHAT CREATED GOD??
  
  Report this comment
Lgbpop
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:22pm
I’m curious what the researchers did with the embryos when they were done.

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- marine249
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:42pm
  mixed them with dog blood
  and the dip eat them.
  
  Report this comment
- Eastinfection
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:50pm
  Gee whiz MARINE…
  
  and you were telling me i was gross a couple weeks ago for thinking Woody Johnson had funny name?
  Now munching on embryos is funny?..
  It IS funny BTW.
  
  Report this comment
- marine249
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 7:31pm
  @EAST
  
  RIGHT; but I didn” use anyone’s name.
  not even the dip’s
  but other than that, I like the fact,
  that you liked my post.
  
  Report this comment
- Oneirishman
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 10:50pm
  Strange thing is I’m sitting on my couch eating Woody Johnson’s Dip!
  
  Report this comment
- Eastinfection
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 11:06pm
  @ONEIRISH..
  
  LOL!.. i’m not one to judge…
  but…
  that sounds kinda creepy…
  
  Report this comment
Ilikepeople
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:20pm
Go ahead start using it on a grand scale, I’m sure there won’t be any side affects…Lol.

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- Ilikepeople
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:26pm
  Now what the scientists ought to do is observe non-altered monkeys behavior in a ecosystem, and the behavior of the altered monkeys in another ecosystem to see which ones are getting more dumb.
  
  Report this comment
- Ilikepeople
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:38pm
  There’s a reason that it seems like people who are in the best shape don’t have much upstairs.
  
  Report this comment
- Eastinfection
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:43pm
  I hate to say it Mr. People…
  
  but that’s a pretty good idea.
  
  Report this comment
- Oneirishman
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 10:57pm
  We have been observing a Monkey in the White House for the last 4 years. And Judging how the Monkeys in Detroit have destroyed there environment…..well I see no side affects.
  
  Report this comment
TheBurningTruth
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:18pm
Sounds like they’re breeding Femi-Nazis now instead of just indoctrinating them.

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Eastinfection
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:17pm
I don’t know about everyone else but, i’m on pins & needles here waiting for ILIKEPEOPLE to show up and start lecturing us about “lakes of fire” & whatnot.

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- Ilikepeople
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:32pm
  Are you really concerned Obama is going to get reelected? Then you’re on fire.
  
  Report this comment
- Eastinfection
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:38pm
  YES!!!!!
  
  THAT is what i’ve been waiting for! Welcome to the conversation ILIKEPEOPLE!
  
  Report this comment
- The-Monk
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 7:16pm
  Hey East,
  
  You weren’t around here when he was “It’sJustTim”…..
  
  Here’s his last 10 posts before jumping on an asteroid that went by the Sun Feb 9 2012
  
  http://www.theblaze.com/users/itsjusttim/
  
  And here’s his account after that;
  
  http://www.theblaze.com/users/watersrpeople/
  
  Enjoy….
  
  Report this comment
- Eastinfection
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 7:47pm
  Thanks for the tip Monk!….
  
  I did have a few tangles w/ WATERRPEOPLE before they “disapparated” (Harry Potter term)….
  
  but, funny enough, i always inferred WATER to be a woman….
  
  you’re right, though, same prose. same “damned” grandstanding. (no offense ILIKE/ WATER/ TIM- i still enjoy some of your posts)
  
  Report this comment
- The-Monk
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 8:10pm
  Hi East,
  
  Wait till he/it gets going on it’s Gog/Magog theme…… LMAO : )
  
  Report this comment
- PaxInVeritate
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 9:11pm
  Hey MONK… *smirks* mmmhmmmmm.
  
  Report this comment
My2
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:03pm
My initial reaction to this was: to what end? what purpose does it serve? So of course, they couch it in terms of “preventing birth defects” who could be against that???? I feel it is really still just an attempt by the left to insinuate itself into everything and doing so in a way that works counter to core religious priniciples. See now, gay people CAN have children together, I wonder if Obamacare will pay for both the infertility treatments and the abortion?

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- Chatikh
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:19pm
  Well maybe your argument would be valid in any other case of DNA donation, but in this case it doesn’t. I assume you didn’t completely understand the article, so I’ll explain it. While it involves taking the nucleus out of one egg, and putting it in another, really all that is happening is a switching of mitochondrial DNA. ALL of the normal genes of the mother that have any effect on the child’s behavior, intelligence, physical appearance, etc. will only come from the actual parents. This is because they are using the nucleus from the actual mother’s egg. If they were going to manipulate it to change the child’s behavior, intelligence, etc., they would have to alter the DNA inside the nucleus of the egg. Which they are not doing. The only possible things this can accomplish is: nothing; or a cure for rare genetic diseases that are carried by the mitochondrial DNA instead of nucleic DNA. DIseases which have no other treatments, and the only possible way to prevent them would be to tell the parents not to have children together.
  
  Report this comment
- Chatikh
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:25pm
  Also, this treatment cannot be used by gay couples wanting to have biological children together. Even if both women in a lesbian relationship underwent this technique, the child would still only be the child of one of the women and the man who donated the sperm. Only in one very small way would it be related to the second partner. Very small as to be insignificant, so the child will not have any of the characteristics of the second partner. A child that is made from an egg of one woman and the sperm of a male sibling of the other woman would be several thousand times more related to both women than if you used the nucleic DNA of one woman and the mitochondrial DNA of the other woman.
  
  Report this comment
SocialistSlayer
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:55pm
Oh great – now we have double sets of genes PMS’n

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The-Monk
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:48pm
Didn’t I see that already in the movie, “Total Recall”?

The Woman with three _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ?

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- Eastinfection
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:13pm
  Hey Monk…lol
  
  I think that scene from Recall scarred me for life! ….along with this one…
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86scPKqWFvc
  
  Report this comment
right-wing-waco
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:15pm
Cheer up, everything will be okay. Maybe the next generation will have 3 hands and how many times have you needed an extra hand to hold your coffee while you did something else?

All joking aside… don’t mess with Gods plan.

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- Cavallo
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:26pm
  What is God’s plan? How do you know it isn’t God’s plan for man to use his intellect to stamp out genetic disease? To ignore it is to take the gift of knowledge that God has given mankind and toss it in the garbage.
  
  Report this comment
- BeeDee
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:48pm
  Some of these diseases and syndromes are truly terrible and cause much suffering. If there is a way to prevent them, it should be investigated. Do we accept vaccinations? Of course, but is it God’s will? Maybe He wants you to get measles or scarlet fever. Are you willing to risk it, for yourself or your children? I’m not.
  
  Report this comment
- Eastinfection
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:36pm
  Hey CAVALLO…
  
  Read all your posts here & i’m 100% in your corner on this one…
  Genetic engineering will always be a risque topic….
  
  but it is reality.. and will be forever…
  Biblical ethics will eventually embrace this, as it does other scientific advances..
  The Vatican eventually praised vaccines after some resistance.
  .. i see no ethical difference, here.
  
  If the faithful among us want something to be angry about… how about opposing all the mood-enhancing pharmaceutical drugs everyone is being prescribed these days?
  ADD, AADD, OCD, PTSD…. they ALL end with “D” for “disorder”.
  Everyones got a friggin “disorder”…
  They used to call it “life”.
  There was a time when people didn’t expect “life” to be easy… that time is gone.
  
  Report this comment
- ScienceIsNotEvil
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 7:33pm
  “All joking aside… don’t mess with Gods plan.”
  
  So I should have allowed my child to die instead of getting him medicine?
  
  Report this comment
- right-wing-waco
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 8:36pm
  OK, I concede, it was a bad choice of words. I simply have a problem with government or man trying to create life an or killing life.
  
  Report this comment
Lara
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:12pm
Jesus said in the end times, man would do something that would shake the very foundations of heaven! To me, this is it. You know they will allow these to grow to be children. They will say they arent but who is there to watch them as they do this. People can be paid off, and basements can be utilized. We are not STUPID!!

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- Chatikh
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:34pm
  I don’t know who makes up the “we” you are talking about, but your comment makes it look like YOU are stupid. If you understood the article, the only difference a child born from this procedure would have from a normal child is that less than 1% of their DNA comes from another woman instead of directly from the mother. This 1% of DNA doesn’t encode for genes that control hair color, race, intelligence, physical appearance, diabetes, etc. It encodes for mitochondrial specific tRNA, mitochondrial ribosomes, mitochondrial… etc. The only thing this could do is either nothing or prevent diseases which have absolutely no cure and treatment is minimal, focusing on controlling symptoms. These diseases are notorious for causing major issues in either muscle or neural tissue, or both.
  
  Report this comment
christos
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:12pm
….Eugenics manipulating genes is done by the wicked will of man,not by +JESUS+GODS+ will,,,,

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- Pontiaku
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 8:51pm
  So manipulating the genes of someone with say parkinson’s disease would be evil? I can’t think of anything more evil than a god that creates a world with such suffering just so you to hop on the internet and spout nonsense.
  
  Report this comment
- PaxInVeritate
  Posted on October 25, 2012 at 1:30am
  PONTIAKU… God did not create the world with suffering. The suffering (disease, genetic degradation, death, pain and the like) came from original sin. It’s that simple.
  
  Report this comment
GBTVFan_Non_American_Overseas
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:06pm
“Hi, my name is Steve and this is my husband Adam, and we’re here to order a baby, please”

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- Pontiaku
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 9:04pm
  That’s not what this article was about. However if homosexuality was genetic I’m sure you’d be the first to make use of this research.
  
  Report this comment
chips1
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:06pm
And to think Obamas mom did it with 1 woman and two men. She said it was harder.

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- Cavallo
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:12pm
  Obama was even better.. he had composite girlfriends for most of his college career.
  
  Report this comment
tonypro
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:03pm
I’m no DNA scientist or Dr., but I have enough common sense to know GMO (DNA) manipulation of food,
and DNA manipulation of humans is reaching into, and playing in Gods territory.

HMmmm didn’t Hitler go after the pure race too. We all know how that ended.

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- chips1
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:09pm
  My wife said it was Patrick Swayze.
  
  Report this comment
- Cavallo
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:11pm
  Depends on what you mean by that. If I cross pollinate two breeds of cotton to create a stronger new species of cotton that is more resistant to bole weevil, is that playing God? If I use a chemical concoction and a microscope to do the same thing, is that playing God? What if I breed a Labrador and a poodle to get a Labor-doodle, playing God? Humans have been using genetic manipulation for as long as man has been around. This is just high tech and lab like, and creeps people out thinking that Dr Frankenstein is around the corner cackling to the heavens. Most of the ethical concerns are in the realms of socio-political politically correct what-ifs, rather than concrete concerns about right and wrong.
  
  Report this comment
- HellAndBack
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:37pm
  God won’t worry until we make something out of nothing and then use that to make other things ALL with he Force of our will ALONE!!! As with All noble endeavors there lies the double edged sword… Even the Word of God has been used for evil. That doesn’t mean we stop preaching the Word. This is NO different. Millions could be cured in the eventual outcome of these courses and WE THE PEOPLE must be Ever Vigilant for those who would take a Path of Evil. As it is with all things. BUT NEVER should we be afraid to become the best that we can become, so long as we take our Hearts and Souls with us.
  
  Create a world of perfect people?? Can’t happen!! Imperfection can not create Perfection. Can you see two proud Black parents asking for a White child? Two Asians asking for a Native American? Two Caucasians asking for a Hispanic Child?? No, it won’t happen and not because we are racist but because we all WANT our children to be an extension of ourselves and our mortality. However, we also want that child to be healthy, smart, athletic, and mentally stable. We want them to walk the line without crossing it, between Madness and Genius. In short, we all want our kids to Look Like Us Combined but Inside the are Captain America (99.99% Perfect). Do you Honestly think Yaweh would begrudge us this… Fear is of the Devil, Caution is just wisdom.
  
  Report this comment
Cavallo
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:01pm
Other than Khan Noonien Singh, what exactly is the problem with designer babies? What is the ethical problem? It obviously isn’t interfering with the work of some supernatural plan or nature, since that is already occurring.

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- rightleaningCree
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 7:30pm
  Spoken like a true “Star Trek” fan!
  
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- rightleaningCree
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 7:36pm
  Spoken like a true “Star Trek” fan.
  I have seen children and young adults die of genetic disorders and if since can be used to spare the family’s then carefully looking in to the process and learning about it could be a good thing.
  
  Report this comment
- hepburn222
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 7:40pm
  The problem with designer babies is that they are humans. Genetically altering cotton or cross breeding dogs is just science. Screwing with human genetics is playing God and too many embryos are destroyed in the process.
  
  Report this comment
tzion
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 4:56pm
Mitochondria exist inside the cells of almost every Eukaryotic organism. Only certain cells don’t contain them. The cell doesn’t manufacture them, they reproduce independently of the cell. In some regards, one could almost consider them to be independent organisms with which we share a symbiotic relationship.

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momrules
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 4:53pm
Man keeps on sticking his nose in God’s business.

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dpmo63
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 4:51pm
So this is how create an Obamazombie. Zombie apocalypse not far off now. Yes…we…can…Obama.

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neverending
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 4:50pm
Knew this was forthcoming – with the evil people we have in washington dc – surprised it took them this long.

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SCREW-WINDOWS
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 4:47pm
Genes From Two Women, One Man wouldn’t that produce another Obama ?

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- Too_Far_Gone
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:21pm
  Don’t even say that joking !!
  
  Report this comment
- SCREW-WINDOWS
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:12pm
  Explains the Femininity factor.
  
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SREGN
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 4:47pm
And so it begins, the absolute end of the sanctity of human life. There will be monsters created……

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Carlinpa
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 4:46pm
RE”safety problems might not show up for several generations” Why are they worrying about that? I mean isn’t the whole “theory” of evolution based on a series of mistakes and mutations that happened by accident? Won’t natural selection screen out any problems ? lol

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- chips1
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:19pm
  Your post made me think it was done about 70 years ago and when you look around, it turned out to be a huge disaster.
  
  Report this comment
- Chatikh
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:48pm
  That’s not how evolution works.
  
  But if the technique is done and the child manages to reach adulthood, then there probably won’t be any problems with future generations. If the technique is flawed and the mitochondria of the child don’t work properly, then the child probably won’t survive to either birth or adulthood, or will survive to adulthood but will obviously have a mitochondrial disease and she won’t have children.
  
  If it’s a male, then they can procreate away. Mitochondrial DNA is only passed on by women.
  
  Report this comment
MrSunshine
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 4:46pm
Yeah, this is a great idea. No way anything bad could happen, right?

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- Chatikh
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 6:44pm
  If a male child is born of this technique, the only issues would be isolated to him. The only possible issues I can think of that could happen because of this would probably appear either by birth, or by adulthood. If it’s by birth, it’s because of flaws in the technique, not because the logic or science of the idea is flawed. Basically it will be because our technology doesn’t allow them to do it properly. If it takes to adulthood to appear, this is because the technique didn’t work period. This is because the diseases that this procedure is intending to treat can sometimes not present until adulthood. This is of course assuming they didn’t test the mitochondrial DNA of the child, which they definitely would.
  
  The only way this would affect the children of the child in question is if the child is female. This is because only females pass the DNA in question to their children. And if the child manages to reach adulthood without any issues, then there won’t be any issues with future generations. This is because if the child’s mitochondria are fine, then the mitochondria of her children will be fine since they get the exact same mitochondria.
  
  The only concerns they are talking about are strictly hypothetical. Any medical procedure would be tested before it went into widespread use, this is no exception. It does not mean this technique will make zombies.
  
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carpee
Posted on October 24, 2012 at 4:45pm
cool.

can we just fast forward to the real walking dead?

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- Lord_Frostwind
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 4:57pm
  I’m going to start stalking up on shotgun shells before someone starts thinking the “T-Virus” or “tissue reanimation” is a good idea.
  
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- Cavallo
  Posted on October 24, 2012 at 5:05pm
  We’re very well prepared for a zombie apocalypse. We’re not ready at all for a financial one.
  
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