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The babies were conceived via IVF<\/p>\n
ZEPHYR\/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Eight young children appear to have been protected from serious genetic conditions after being born using DNA from three people. The procedure involved replacing defective mitochondria from their mothers with those from a female donor.<\/p>\n
Around 1 in 5000 people<\/a> have defective mitochondria, which ordinarily provide cells with energy and are only inherited from our mothers. These defects are caused by genetic mutations that can lead to issues such as blindness, seizures and, in extreme cases, death. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult for families to deal with these diseases; they are devastating,\u201d says Bobby McFarland<\/a> at Newcastle University, UK.<\/p>\n In 2015, the UK became the first country to approve a procedure called pronuclear transfer for women who are at high risk of passing on mitochondrial conditions and would not benefit from preimplantation genetic testing, which screens embryos for such mutations.<\/p>\n Pronuclear transfer involves eggs from both a would-be mother and a donor being fertilised with sperm from the father via IVF. About 10 hours later, the nucleus is removed from both eggs. This carries most of a cell\u2019s genetic material, which is separate from mitochondrial DNA<\/a>.<\/p>\n The mother\u2019s nucleus is then inserted into the donor\u2019s egg, resulting in an embryo that inherits most of its DNA from its biological parents, but mitochondria from the donor. A small amount of the mother\u2019s mitochondria may still be unintentionally passed on, says Bert Smeets<\/a> at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n McFarland, who developed the approach along with his colleagues, has since used the technique on 19 women with harmful mutations in around 80 per cent or more of their mitochondria \u2013 the level that usually causes issues to arise.<\/p>\n Seven of the women became pregnant after the final embryos were transferred into their uteruses. They gave birth to eight healthy babies in total, with one having twins.<\/p>\n The researchers analysed blood samples collected from the newborns. They found no harmful mitochondrial DNA mutations in five of them, and only a very low level in the remaining three. \u201cI would say that the results are as good as you could have hoped for,\u201d says Mike Murphy<\/a> at the University of Cambridge.<\/p>\n