For three parents
Australian Senate backs "triple parenthood" – reproductive technology with mitochondrial donation
Marina Astvatsaturyan, Echo of Moscow
A group of Australian politicians has published a roadmap for legislating the possibility of artificial insemination with mitochondrial donation, Nature News reports (Australia moves a step closer to 'three-person IVF').
The senators' recommendations were published at the end of June and involve government consultations with the public and specialist scientists on the official authorization of the clinical use of reproductive technology, which will help women avoid transmitting genetic defects to children associated with mutations in their mitochondria, intracellular structures that produce energy.
According to this technique, an embryo with nuclear DNA from two people, mother and father, and mitochondrial DNA from a third participant in the process – a female egg donor is obtained from a healthy donor egg. Such an embryo from "three parents" – the result of artificial insemination in vitro – can then be implanted, as is done in the usual procedure of in vitro fertilization, IVF.
Currently, the only country where such a reproductive approach has already received regulatory approval is the United Kingdom, although no child with donor mitochondria has yet been born there. Singapore is also considering the possibility of legalizing "triple parenthood".
The Australian Committee, consisting of members of parliament from the ruling party, the opposition and small parties, studied the issue for three months before offering its recommendations to the attention of the government.
According to the document submitted by the senators, the government may introduce changes to the legislation that will allow Australian women with mitochondrial diseases to contact British specialists for the time being.
Mitochondrial diseases are a group of pathologies occurring in one in 500 children and in 12 out of 100 thousand adults. The symptoms of these diseases can be both moderate and disabling and life-threatening with damage to many body systems, including the digestive, musculoskeletal, endocrine, cardiovascular and nervous systems.
According to Professor Caroline Sue from the Kolling Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, which is cited by BioNews (Australian Senate endorses mitochondrial donation), most people with mitochondrial mutations are unaware that they carry them. "Patients carrying such mutations often remain undiagnosed and are in clinics where they are being treated for diabetes, epilepsy or headache." Scientists and patients welcomed the senators' recommendations for legalizing mitochondrial donation with enthusiasm. The Government has not yet responded.
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