A native of the USSR suggested “making” children from three parents: a whole cohort was already born

According to the technology developed by Shukhrat Mitalipov, babies were born in different countries of the world

Chronic fatigue, dementia, heart disease, liver disease… This is an incomplete list of pathologies from which, according to scientists, the so-called MDT technology, mitochondrial replacement therapy, can save. Simply put, this is the birth of a child from three parents. Great Britain, the only country where this technology was legally allowed for the first time in history, was silent for a long time about the results of the experiments, leaving behind Mexico, Greece, China, and Ukraine. But now the British Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has announced the birth of at least four “genetically modified” Englishmen between 2017 and 2023.

Responding to The Guardian, the agency confirmed that there are already several “designer” kids running around the country, but for confidentiality reasons, they did not share more detailed information.

Recall that healthy parents do not need to resort to MDT. The classical method of fertilization is invaded only in those cases when the expectant mother is diagnosed with mitochondrial damage. Mitochondria are like the powerhouses of cells. They envelop the fertilized nucleus and are inherited along with the egg. If these “stations” are not in the best condition, it can affect the health of the unborn child. Scientists can name up to a hundred diseases transmitted with the genes of sick mothers’ mitochondria. These are diabetes, mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, accompanied by exercise intolerance and epileptic seizures, Leber’s neuropathy, expressed in vision loss, MELAS syndrome – a progressive neurodegenerative disease – and, finally, just chronic fatigue.

Now The Guardian newspaper no longer mentions who was the first to dare to challenge nature by proposing to replace the mother’s mitochondrial set with the biomaterial of another, healthy woman. But this was our former compatriot, a native of the USSR, who has been working in the United States since 1995 – Shukhrat Mitalipov.

His method, which he proposed in 2009 and is now used by scientists around the world, was as follows. The egg of a future mother with a hereditary disease is first fertilized in a test tube, and then the fertilized nucleus is transferred to the egg of another woman who does not have mitochondrial disorders (the nucleus of the donor egg, of course, is previously removed). The fetus eventually begins to develop with the support of the mitochondria of the “alien aunt”.

Mitalipov’s first experiments on monkeys gave hope to his followers.

– In 2015, the UK Parliament approved the world’s first bill allowing artificial insemination using DNA samples from three people.

– In 2016, the world’s first child with the genetic material of three parents was born in Mexico.

– In 2018, NPR reported the birth of children from three parents in Ukraine.

– In 2023, the British Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) announced the birth of at least four Englishmen using the MDT method.

In fact, scientists note, the set from the “second mother” with such fertilization is less than 0.2 percent – the main “word” is spoken by the parental genes that are in the nucleus. Yet the new methodology is controversial in most countries. “Jokes are bad with genes,” experts from the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences warn in turn. The development of an embryo in the presence of foreign mitochondria is a risk factor that cannot be calculated in advance. There is another factor – bioethical. Its apologists argue that it is impossible to “make” children “by order” and a healthy society, strange as it may sound, even needs … sick children. Only in this way will its members continue to be human beings and never forget how to sympathize with their neighbor.

Proponents of MDT remind that, according to statistics, every 7000th newborn in the world, a boy or a girl, has a maternal mutation. They remember Tsarevich Alexei Romanov, the son of Nicholas II, who inherited hemophilia (blood incoagulability) on the maternal side. And if in the 19th century there would have been an opportunity to “dilute” the royal blood with healthy genes, maybe history would have taken a different path.

Doctors at the Newcastle clinic, who announced the birth of several children from three parents at once in the UK, do not disclose all the details of the birth. It is only said that after fertilization, the egg of “mother number two” is implanted in the uterus of “mother number one”, after which she bears and gives birth to a baby in the usual way. According to experts, it will be possible to test the effect of the technique only in 10-15 years, when behavioral qualities in children born from three parents, their ability to learn, begin to appear.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29026 dated May 11, 2023

Newspaper headline:
Boys and girls, as well as three parents