This is nifty -

[kyburg]

British scientists say they have created human embryos containing DNA from two women and a man in a procedure that researchers hope might be used one day to produce embryos free of inherited diseases.

Though the preliminary research has raised concerns about the possibility of genetically modified babies, the scientists say that the embryos are still only primarily the product of one man and one woman.

You can hear the hue and cry now, right? Gay marriage is NOTHING against this, right?

"The process aims to create healthy embryos for couples to avoid passing on genes carrying diseases.

The genes being replaced are the mitochondria, a cell's energy source, which are contained outside the nucleus in a normal female egg. Mistakes in the mitochondria's genetic code can result in serious diseases like muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, strokes and mental retardation.

In their research, Chinnery and colleagues used normal embryos created from one man and one woman that had defective mitochondria in the woman's egg. They then transplanted that embryo into an emptied egg donated from a second woman who had healthy mitochondria.

The research is being funded by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, a British charity.

Only trace amounts of a person's genes come from the mitochondria, and experts said it would be incorrect to say that the embryos have three parents.

"Most of the genes that make you who you are are inside the nucleus," Chinnery said. "We're not going anywhere near that."

I'm still not happy that there is nothing for people with these issues - only a possible means to prevent them in the future (and so far, the only way to find the issue in parents is for them to have a kid WITH them).

Interesting times, neh?

Comments

[violet-tigress1.livejournal.com]

Yes. Very.

[drlaurac.livejournal.com]

I 'd much rather just use someone else's genetic material!
Hey lady, can you loan me an egg?

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

What that says is the the problem arises somewhere in the sequence of protein syntheses that get done in the cytoplasm. They're now saying they need lots of funding to research proteomics, because, gee, turns out the Human Genome Project *doesn't* tell them everything they were expecting. Here's all these gates clicking and these enzymes shuttling in and out and there's nothing in the Big Office, in the DNA, telling it how to do that directly.
By that point, it's all down on the factory floor, done by things that developed out of other things combining in sequences completely independent of direct DNA transcription. mRNa floating around in the cell is telling enzymes what to put together and when to stop doing it. *That's* why it's useful to have protoplasm from somebody else's egg, not just the mitochondria organelles.
But yep, studying proteomics, we're going to solve all that stuff, just you wait.
Uh huh.

Interesting times, neh?

[bluemoonpnw.livejournal.com]

That's a curse y'know.
And yeah, very.