I’m a big fan of science and technology, but I’m not sure I’m completely on board with this recent development. Scientists in Oregon have just created human embryos using genetic material from three parents. Yep, three.
The new technique was apparently developed as a way of helping babies avoid inheriting certain rare genetic conditions from their parents (although, which parents are we talking about?).
The process words by taking chromosomes from mom #1 and placing them into an egg donated by mom #2. The result is an egg that has 99.8% of mom #1’s DNA (that’s everything except the parts that might contribute to those genetic conditions) and 0.2% of mom #2’s. Then the eggs are fertilized by sperm from dad (so far only #1, but who knows what’s on the horizon?).
The scientists were careful to point out that the snippet of mom #2’s DNA isn’t responsible for making kids look like mom or dad.
