I had recently read the book 'The Seven Daughter's of Eve' by Bryan Sykes. Brilliantly written book about a fascinating way to trace back to your mitochondrial ancestors.
Put into the book it seems so simple you wonder why nobody thought of it before. To be fair DNA is relatively young and mitochondrial DNA even more so. It makes sense to see why people have been preoccupied with DNA for all this time.
So mitochondria - silent yet ever confident. Our whole lives depend on it.
It took me by surprise when I read a recent article on a genetic disease affecting the mitochondrial DNA. This meaning that it can only be passed on from mother to child and if she has a daughter from her daughter to her children and so on and so forth.
It's called Leigh's Disease.
It is a disease that affects the brain and the nervous system and leads to death in early childhood.
Now what I'm trying to get at is the ethical issues behind this scenario. If parents affected by this are having to watch their children suffer and die is that fair?
It introduces a new case of 'Three parent IVF' where as well as the sperm and egg from the parents a third donor parent with DNA without the disease alleles can be included.
This seems revolutionary until we start asking questions such as:
Does the third person donating the "right" DNA have any right to the child? Can they claim the fact that they gave the child a disease free life? Could they abuse this?
What if the third party is somebody the parents already know? Would that cause tension between the parents later on in life?
Would the child know that they had their faulty genes corrected by someone else? If so, in what way would the child regard the donor? Would it affect their relationship?
Lets leave the idea of the couple and the child, should scientists even be tampering with something such as genetics when they themselves do not fully understand it?
On the other hand:
These parents just want their child to live. The whole thing with manipulating genes for designer babies- really - it seems quite silly when all you want is to stop them from suffering and to see them growing up.
I found this really interesting, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19648992
Put into the book it seems so simple you wonder why nobody thought of it before. To be fair DNA is relatively young and mitochondrial DNA even more so. It makes sense to see why people have been preoccupied with DNA for all this time.
So mitochondria - silent yet ever confident. Our whole lives depend on it.
It took me by surprise when I read a recent article on a genetic disease affecting the mitochondrial DNA. This meaning that it can only be passed on from mother to child and if she has a daughter from her daughter to her children and so on and so forth.
It's called Leigh's Disease.
It is a disease that affects the brain and the nervous system and leads to death in early childhood.
Now what I'm trying to get at is the ethical issues behind this scenario. If parents affected by this are having to watch their children suffer and die is that fair?
It introduces a new case of 'Three parent IVF' where as well as the sperm and egg from the parents a third donor parent with DNA without the disease alleles can be included.
This seems revolutionary until we start asking questions such as:
Does the third person donating the "right" DNA have any right to the child? Can they claim the fact that they gave the child a disease free life? Could they abuse this?
What if the third party is somebody the parents already know? Would that cause tension between the parents later on in life?
Would the child know that they had their faulty genes corrected by someone else? If so, in what way would the child regard the donor? Would it affect their relationship?
Lets leave the idea of the couple and the child, should scientists even be tampering with something such as genetics when they themselves do not fully understand it?
On the other hand:
These parents just want their child to live. The whole thing with manipulating genes for designer babies- really - it seems quite silly when all you want is to stop them from suffering and to see them growing up.
I found this really interesting, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19648992
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