There are two procedures to avoid passing on faulty mitochondria. The first involves using an egg from one woman with mitochondrial defects and the sperm of the father. Scientists then put that embryo into an emptied egg from a second woman with healthy mitochondria. The DNA from the second woman amounts to less than 1 percent of the embryo's genes.

In the second technique, scientists transfer nuclear DNA out of a day-old embryo with defective mitochondria. The DNA is implanted into another single-cell embryo with normal mitochondria. The nuclear DNA from the donor embryo is discarded, leaving the healthy mitochondria.

I'm having trouble figuring out how these two are different as the descriptions are written so [...]ty.

The best I can glean from this is you fuse a zygote from the mother and father with an unfertilized egg to provide healthy mitochondria, which leaves defective mitochondria still present.

The second sounds like a much better option as it removes all dysfunctional mitochondria.

disgusting abuse of science

Why? Because babies with mitochondrial disorders are a gift from God?

Try thinking with your brain, not your gut.

Next is a customized fetus. Maybe we can have a show on MTV called "Pimp my Fetus". This is just crazy.

I'm sorry but you're a scientifically illiterate moron if you sincerely believe this. It is a HUGE leap of logic from the story as I understand it to what you say.

It's a far cry from solving mitochondrial disorders using similar technology/knowledge that produced Dolly to customized fetuses.

Either there is something wrong with the survey or a slim majority in the UK is in favor of kids having three genetic parents. Have none of the people read Frankenstein? Or seen Jurassic Park?

Have you read any actual science?

Frankly, when it comes to moral issues, sometimes the gut is a better barometer than the brain. If it feels wrong, it probably is.

The gut is never better than the brain.

It's the reason the scientific method was developed in the first place and it's the reason we had George Bush as POTUS for 8 [...]ty years, almost had Sarah Palin as VP and why the Tea Party isn't seen as the stain that it is.

Second, why are you bringing God into this?

I was mocking Rick Santorum's statement.

Third, messing around with DNA and other systems related to reproduction of the humans species is dangerous at best and catastrophic at worst. We do not know enough about DNA, reproduction, and evolution to be tinkering like this.

You'll have to excuse me if I doubt you have the knowledge to make this authoritative a statement.

This isn't "messing around with DNA", it's replacing the cellular organelle that is responsible for a slew of disorders with one's that don't. The DNA is left completely alone.

This is just blatant selfishness on part of the parents and doctors. Adopt, there are plenty of children already that need loving parents.

Yeah, because God knows it's altruistic to let children be born with disorders that will make their lives hell.

I agree with the adopt part though. Plenty of already born kids that need good homes.

Well I may be a Godless scientist heathen, but I still have heart somewhere in there.

I think my familiarity with science, and biology in particular, means I'm not afraid of it. I don't see an issue with something like this as it's analogous to changing the bad part of a car engine. Not tweaking the part in a potentially bad way, just replacing it.

From the article JPW, "The DNA from the second woman amounts to less than 1 percent of the embryo's genes." So we are messing with DNA.

No, no we're not. We're replacing defective mitochondria with healthy ones.

Mitochondria, the power generators for cells, contain their own small genomes that are passed from mother to child within the mitochondria themselves. Hence why they can give a number for the % the mitochondrial genome represents in the total genetic matter contained within a cell.

The DNA is fully intact with no manipulation.

Comparing a car repair to mixing 3 peoples DNA means you KNOW NOTHING ABOUT SCIENCE!

No, it just means you're too dense to get the analogy.

My lord man, there is no system more complex on this planet then the human body, it took 100-300 million years of rough and tough evolution to get modern humans.

Talk about hubris.

Why is the human body any more complex than any other multi-cellular organism? Interesting indeed that we can use fruit flies and mice as good models for the most complex system on Earth!

But hey a centuries worth of biological science and you think we have it all figure out, hubris

Far from it.

And one doesn't have to have it all figured out to know there isn't a reason to fear this.

If you knew something about science (as I do) you would be afraid of it.

Well your posts certainly aren't backing your claim to being knowledgeable about science, certainly not biology at least.

And much like anything else it's the implementation one needs to fear, not the information itself. There is nothing to fear in this beyond the ethical (read largely academic) concerns over creating something that's never been created before.

The physicists working on the Manhattan project knew a lot about nuclear interactions, but still had no idea the devastation that a nuclear bomb would have until they saw it first hand.

And this is hardly the Manhattan Project.

It can warm us, light the way, and help defend us.

Or it can cause destruction of such magnitude our brains can't really grasp it.

The duality of science and scientific information is not lost on me nor scientists. Safety and ethics are taken extremely seriously within the scientific community.

We can parrot the numbers but we don't really grasp the gravity.

And I disagree in this instance.

Unless you can point out to me a valid, actually possible concern in swapping healthy cellular organelles, in tact, with dysfunctional ones it's just naysaying for the sake of naysaying.

When it comes to morality and ethics, which I was referring to in my post, the scientific method is nearly useless.

But the brain isn't, which is the point I was referring to.

The quip about the scientific method was to simply point out that we, as society, figured out a long time ago that thinking with the gut is often wrong.

Some people seem to use science as there version of religion, and become as intolerable as religious right can be.

And I find those who do are usually very passionate but not well informed.

The greatest difference between science and religion IMO is science is incredibly fluid and always changing.

Meanwhile, religious doctrine is anything but.

Ever hear of the Spanish Flu?

It was biological in nature too.

I'm a virologist, so yes. I've heard the name before lol

But unless you can specifically point out how throwing out random extreme examples of biological chaos is relevant or how this could do the same, it's just as I said in the final line of post 26.

Even if you approve of designer kids

But that's the issue here, I don't think this is remotely close enough to even bring up the issue of designer kids.

Mitochondrial genes regulate processes within the mitochondria.

Nuclear genes are what make a person who they are.

The nuclear genes are not in anyway being changed and or manipulated in this. Hell, neither are the mitochondrial ones.

It's a part swap. Period.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Or just agree that adoption is a better and possibly less painful option.