Making a Baby With Three Parents

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In hopes of preventing a host of serious diseases potentially passed on to a child by a mother with mitochondrial mutations, scientists are pursuing mitochondrial transfer or mitochondrial replacement therapy. Because it involves combining mitochondrial DNA from a healthy mother with nuclear DNA from two parents, the procedure is sometimes called “three-parent in vitro fertilization” — a term almost as controversial as the procedure itself. In this clip from the 2014 World Science Festival program “Designer Genes: Fashioning Our Biological Future” fertility specialists Paula Amato and Jamie Grifo discuss the science of the procedure.

[Source: World Science Festival YouTube link]

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