Scientists have been granted permission to create a human embryo that will have genetic material from two mothers.
The Newcastle University team will transfer the pro-nuclei - the components of a nucleus of a human embryo - which have been made by one man and woman into an unfertilised egg from another woman.
The groundbreaking work aims to prevent mothers from passing certain genetic diseases on to their unborn babies.
Such diseases, which are known as mitochondrial, arise from DNA found outside the nucleus and thus inherited separately from DNA in the nucleus.
A spokesman for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said in a statement: "The HFEA has today granted a licence to the Newcastle Fertility Centre at LIFE for the use of embryos for research into mitochondrial disease.
"The application was initially rejected by the HFEA's research licence committee, which ruled that the proposed research was not permitted by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990."
More... http://www.channel4.com/news/content/news-...e.jsp?id=851152
The Newcastle University team will transfer the pro-nuclei - the components of a nucleus of a human embryo - which have been made by one man and woman into an unfertilised egg from another woman.
The groundbreaking work aims to prevent mothers from passing certain genetic diseases on to their unborn babies.
Such diseases, which are known as mitochondrial, arise from DNA found outside the nucleus and thus inherited separately from DNA in the nucleus.
A spokesman for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said in a statement: "The HFEA has today granted a licence to the Newcastle Fertility Centre at LIFE for the use of embryos for research into mitochondrial disease.
"The application was initially rejected by the HFEA's research licence committee, which ruled that the proposed research was not permitted by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990."
More... http://www.channel4.com/news/content/news-...e.jsp?id=851152