Doctors hail babies born with DNA of three people

Doctors in the UK have announced the birth of eight healthy babies after performing a groundbreaking procedure that creates IVF embryos with DNA from three people to prevent children from inheriting incurable genetic disorders.

- Ian Sample

The mothers were all high risk for passing on life-threatening diseases to their babies owing to mutations in their mitochondria, the tiny structures that sit inside cells and provide the power they need to function.

News of the births and the children's health has been awaited by doctors around the world since UK law was changed in 2015 to allow the procedure. The fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, granted the first licence in 2017 to a clinic at Newcastle University, where doctors pioneered the technique.

The four boys and four girls, including one set of identical twins, were born to seven women and have no signs of the mitochondrial diseases they were at risk of inheriting.

Sir Doug Turnbull, a professor of neurology at Newcastle who was part of the team that spent more than two decades developing the procedure, said the healthy births were reassuring for researchers and the families affected. "You are inevitably thinking it's great for the patients and that is a relief," he said.

Prof Mary Herbert, another senior member of the team, said that to have eight healthy babies from the procedure was "rewarding for all of us".