Scientists have announced the world’s first baby born with DNA from three people.
A report in New Scientist magazine says the baby boy was born five months ago in Mexico to Jordanian parents and is in good health.
U.S. fertility doctor John Zhang turned to Mexico for the birth because the technique is still banned in the United States.
The baby’s mother carries genes for a fatal nervous system disease called Leigh syndrome. She had passed on the illness to two previous children who died shortly after birth, and had suffered four miscarriages.
Zhang isolated the disease-causing DNA from the mother’s nuclear DNA, injected her healthy DNA into a donor’s egg, and fertilized the egg with the father’s sperm.
Zhang plans to make a full presentation of the case at a medical meeting next month in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Federal health officials have banned the technique in the U.S. because earlier experiments resulted in babies with genetic disorders.
