Eight babies with DNA from three people born free of severe hereditary disease

A groundbreaking three-person IVF technique to prevent devastating disease has led to the birth of eight babies in the UK.

- JANE KIRBY

The scientific method, known as mitochondrial donation treatment, is designed to prevent children from being born with devastating mitochondrial diseases that are passed down from their mothers.

These illnesses can be fatal and often cause devastating damage to organs, including the brain, muscle, liver, heart and kidney.

Four boys and four girls, including one set of identical twins, have been delivered and are all doing well, and one other woman is currently pregnant.

It follows treatment by a team in Newcastle, who pioneered the technique.

Of the eight babies born, three are now aged under six months, two are aged six to 12 months, one is 12 to 18 months old, one is aged 18 to 24 months and another child is aged over two.

All the babies are healthy and are meeting their milestones, according to the team from Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle University and Newcastle Fertility Centre.

None of the eight babies shows signs of having mitochondrial DNA disease, which tends to affect around one in 5,000 births. The scientists said disease-causing mitochondrial DNA mutations, picked up in three of the children, are either undetectable or present at levels that are very unlikely to cause disease.

The main lab method used by the team, known as pronuclear transfer (PNT), involves taking the egg from an affected mother, sperm from her partner and an egg from a donor who is free from disease.

The mother of a baby girl born through mitochondrial donation said: “As parents, all we ever wanted was to give our child a healthy start in life.