Powering a cure

摘要

In September Britain's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority launched a public consultation on what sounds like a crackpot idea: to create children with three genetic parents. Yet this could be a way to eliminate a set of rare but nasty diseases caused by problems with pieces of cellular machinery called mitochondria. According to research published this week (see page 72), the basic technique of substituting problem-free mitochondria has now been tested in a laboratory and the researchers seem confident that, given the green light, they could bring a healthy child into the world.