Three-parent families: genetics trump politics.

• Author: Mangu-Ward, Katherine
• Position: Citings - Brief article

WHILE SOCIAL conservatives of a certain stripe are fretting about the possibility that gay marriage might open the door to other unorthodox family arrangements, a British research team at Newcastle University is on the verge of assembling babies with three biological parents. These embryos would use the genetic material from the nucleus of an ordinary fertilized egg (the yolk) but borrow a hollowed-out egg (the white) from another woman. The second woman's egg would still contain her mitochondria, which have genetic material of their own.

The aim is to prevent rare, but serious, mitochondrial diseases. There are currently no treatments for this family of diseases, which are inherited matrilineally. A child born using the new process...