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skywizard
28th February 2014, 14:41
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A U.S. advisory board on Wednesday debated a controversial new technique that would use DNA from three people to produce embryos free of a particular type of hereditary disease.

The panel, which provides independent advice to the Food and Drug Administration, weighed whether a procedure that replaces part of a human egg cell with that of another is safe for clinical trials.

The procedure has thus far been tested only on monkey embryos.

Proponents of the technique called "three-parent in vitro fertilization" say the measure has huge medical potential while detractors say it could lead to custom-made "designer babies."

At the center of debate lie mitochondria, a structure where most of a cell's energy is created, that also contains DNA separate from the 23 chromosomes in a cell's nucleus.

Each year some 1,000 to 4,000 children born in the United States develop mitochondrial diseases, which often affect the central nervous system or cause blindness or heart problems.

The diseases, which generally become evident before age ten, often result from genetic abnormalities in mitochondria, which are passed down from a child's mother.

Under the procedure, a disease-producing mitochondria in an egg is replaced with another woman's mitochondria, before the egg is then fertilized in a laboratory and implanted in the mother.

Shoukhrat Mitalipov, the scientist at Oregon Health and Science University who created the procedure, successfully oversaw the birth of five monkeys using the technique.

He would now like to pursue clinical trials on humans.

In 2001, using a different technique, U.S. scientists carried out successful three-parent fertilization experiments which resulted in the birth of some 20 children.

But the FDA asked them to halt the procedure on humans.

The Center for Genetics and Society, a Washington group opposed to the procedure, organized a petition against its approval.

"This is a biologically extreme procedure that puts any resulting children at serious risk, and that breaks a long-standing international consensus against producing genetically engineered humans" said director Marcy Darnovsky.

"The technique ... raises grave safety and social concerns. It carries a wide range of predictable and unpredictable risks for any resulting children and for future generations," she said.

Some 40 countries, including many with large biotechnology and advanced biomedical sectors, have adopted laws forbidding similar genetic modifications, Darnovsky emphasized.

Susan Solomon, CEO of the New York Stem Cell foundation told The Washington Post that people's feelings on the procedure should not be motivated by a fear of the unknown.

"There are no designer babies here," she said. "We are trying to stop a horrible, horrible disease."


Source: http://news.discovery.com/human/life/fda-considers-three-parent-embryo-technique-140227.htm


peace...
skywizard

Wolf Khan
2nd March 2014, 01:06
They are just wanting to create hybrids to replace us, and to produce a viable slave force. One that doesn'ttry to kill them back.

Sooz
2nd March 2014, 01:17
This is just wrong. It goes against everything in the natural order of things..

This is just the start of a big slippery slope imo. Where do you stop?

I shudder to think what other experiments go on that we don't know about. (Well, that mainstream doesn't know about).

Seikou-Kishi
2nd March 2014, 05:53
I've thought about this before. I made a presentation about it once in Biology class. It's nowhere near as complicated as it might sound.

Seikou-Kishi
2nd March 2014, 08:17
SK, I'm sure it is not as complicated as it might sound, scientifically. For those who are informed, we all know the stuff going on.

It's the moral complications against a natural order that is concerning to me.

And what it means for the human race. i.e., my grandchildren and their descendents in the future.

Everyone's progeny. There is serious **** going on here.

Are we going to be bred scientifically without a soul or empathy for instance?

That is just one of a myriad of questions.

Oh certainly, Sooz. I just wonder what took them so long.

Sooz
2nd March 2014, 08:35
SK, I'm sure it is not as complicated as it might sound, scientifically. For those who are informed, we all know the stuff going on.

It's the moral complications against a natural order that is concerning to me.

And what it means for the human race. i.e., my grandchildren and their descendents in the future.

Everyone's progeny. There is serious **** going on here.

Are we going to be bred scientifically without a soul or empathy for instance?

That is just one of a myriad of questions.