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London, Sept. 27 — The United Kingdom saw the birth of the first baby in the world conceived by an assisted reproduction technique which used DNA from three different parents, revealed the British science magazine New Scientist on Tuesday.
The publication noted that Abrahim Hassan, a five-month-old baby, was the result of a controversial method that uses the DNA of the father, the mother, and a donor or “second mother”.
This technique, which allows parents with rare genetic mutations to conceive healthy children, was approved in the U.K. in 2015.
Embryology experts explain that the birth of Abrahim Hassan, whose Jordanian parents were treated in Mexico by a U.S. medical team, should boost the progress of these techniques worldwide.
In this case, the baby’s mother, Ibtisam Shaban, carrys the genes of Leigh syndrome, a deadly disorder that affects the developing nervous system.
The genes of the disease are found in mitochondrial DNA, which provides energy to the cells and transports 37 genes that are passed from mother to child. EFE
