Genetic therapy
Stephen Cox writes about ethical challenges posed by ‘three parent’ babies
Earlier this month MPs voted to permit a radical new procedure, using the genes of three people to form a baby. If the House of Lords agree, children could be born from this procedure as soon as 2016.
Most of our genes are in the nucleus of the cell: 22,000 of them. Our cells also include mitochondria, little power plants inherited only from the mother. Genetic defects here cause serious diseases. These lead to incurable diseases and death in perhaps 150 births a year.
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