On [August 4], regulators issued a sternly worded letter to fertility doctor John Zhang, who helped a mother with a genetic disorder give birth to a healthy baby boy by using a procedure that combines DNA from her, her husband and an egg donor.
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The FDA says that’s not allowed. Since 2015, Congress has forbidden the FDA from accepting submissions for clinical investigations that involve intentionally creating a human embryo with a heritable genetic modification. But Zhang’s research does just this.
The letter notes that Zhang […] had already agreed not to create any more “three-parent” embryos in the United States, but the letter takes issue with the company’s continued marketing of the service.
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While the technology was originally used to avoid a disease passed through mitochondria, organelles that are passed down through the egg cell, Zhang’s clinic was hoping to use it for another purpose — to help women of advanced maternal age who had been unable to conceive in other ways. By using an egg from a younger donor combined with their own DNA, the women would theoretically be able to have their own genetic offspring.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: FDA cracks down on company marketing ‘three-parent’ babies
