Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #mitochondrialDNA
Most recents (1)
The Aus Senate this Weds will vote on so-called 'three-parent #babies'. These would be #donorconceived babies, genetically the child of 3 people not 2, made by an unregulated, for-profit industry, where there are serious questions about the future for the resulting child. A 🧵
Three-parent babies are made from #mitochondrialDNA donation. For eg: you fertilise a would-be mother's egg, and a donor egg. You suck the middle (the pronucleus) out of both. You put the would-be mother's pronucleus in the 'shell' of the donor egg. You gestate the embryo.
This is to avoid a child inheriting mitochondrial disease from the mother. What it means is: the child inherits DNA from 3 people - bio father, the would-be mother, and the donor. This *is inheritable*. If it's a girl baby, DNA from THREE people will be passed on to her children.
