The first step was taken by the United Kingdom after approving last February an assisted reproduction technique that was based on the use of the DNA of three people (with eggs from two women and the sperm of a man) to prevent any baby from being born with Communicable diseases , especially those incurable such as Fragile X syndrome, a rare genetic disease.
Now, a team of Spanish scientists led by Juan Carlos Izpisúa from the Salk Institute in La Jolla in California (USA) has discovered an alternative way to avoid having to use DNA from three people in order to eliminate mitochondrial diseases (those that is transmitted only through the maternal route and that is made up of about 150 tremendously devastating pathologies for the body). The new technique removes altered genes directly in the embryo or even in the egg itself before being fertilized .
This genetic editing erases with a stroke of the pen the ethical debate that did point to the assisted reproduction technique in the United Kingdom due to the fact that it has DNA from someone other than the future parents. But, despite eliminating this particular ethical debate, it opens a new one: the possibility of putting “DNA à la carte” into practice . This confirmed demonstration that a person’s genetic material can be changed would not only lead us to correct or eradicate communicable diseases, but we could make babies taller, have blue eyes, be smarter …
In this specific case the scientists have not edited the nuclear DNA ; Only the mutated mitochondrial DNA has been selectively deleted in both ovules and embryos of mice, discovering that once the offspring were born, all of them were born healthy . How does the technique work? The technique works as if it were molecular scissors, using nucleases that detect the altered DNA and cut it. This cut does not remove all the mutated copies, but it does remove enough to ensure healthy offspring.
This milestone in medicine, which has so far been successfully tested in mice ( the next step will be to test it in humans ), has been published in the journal Cell . Its implementation in humans could prevent, before birth, inherited diseases such as cancer, diabetes or neurodegenerative diseases.
