Up to 30 gene children living in US, says doctor

By ANNE BESTON and AGENCIES

Genetically altered babies may have been born over the past four years under the revolutionary treatment that came to light at the weekend.

Researchers revealed yesterday that up to 30 children could be carrying genes from three people - father, biological mother and female egg donor.

The technique has been used since 1997, but has only now attracted attention after researchers checked for the first time to see if the children ended up with genes from both women.

The oldest of the children turns four in a month, says the man who has helped pioneer the technique, Dr Jacques Cohen from New Jersey's Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science at St Barnabas.

The St Barnabas researchers treated 30 women who gave birth to 15 babies.

But another 15 have been born after the use of the technique at other facilities in the US, Dr Cohen said.

One of Australasia's leading fertility experts, Professor Robert Jansen, medical director of Australian fertility clinic Sydney IVF, said the technique was not new. It was presented to the World Fertility Congress by the St Barnabas researchers in Sydney two years ago.

" ... it's nothing new and it might well be better treatment for infertile women than having a whole egg donated, in other words having someone else's child."

The treatment is used for a rare form of infertility in women who have fertile eggs but whose resulting embryos die before they can be implanted in the uterus.

Researchers at St Barnabas injected donor DNA that contained mitochondria, tiny self-contained structures that use oxygen and nutrients to create energy in cells, into the defective eggs.

They found the technique allowed the otherwise infertile women to have successful pregnancies.

But it was not until the latest issue of a British fertility journal that Dr Cohen revealed that two children had been tested to see if they had genes from three people. It was found they did.

The St Barnabas researchers have been labelled "mavericks" by some scientists, but Professor Jansen said they were respected scientists who were leaders in their field.

The view of most experts was that the children were in no danger from having their eggs manipulated in this way.

"It's a treatment for fertility, not a treatment to modify a baby genetically in any way."

Having DNA from a donor implanted into the mother's egg would make "absolutely" no difference to the genetic make-up of the children.

The genes in the mitochondrial DNA were the same ones the children would have had anyway, because they were the same in everyone.

In the US, clinics which do not receive Government funding are legally able to carry out ground-breaking research with in-house approval from their own ethics committees.

Professor Jansen said fertility researchers in Australia were "reluctant" to begin carrying out this kind of treatment until it was better understood.

"We've hesitated to take it further down this road because there isn't yet a really plausible explanation of just how rejuvenating an egg this way actually works," Professor Jansen said.

"I think it's important it remain in the hands of a few very competent people who can follow up the children to see if anything does turn up that's unexpected." The technique would theoretically be legal in NewZealand, but would have to gain approval from the National Ethics Committee on Human Assisted Reproduction.

This is an independent body set up to advise the Government on fertility issues.

It is unlikely such approval would be granted, said the medical director of Fertility Associates of Auckland, Dr Richard Fisher.

Two bills dealing with reproductive technology are before Parliament's health select committee.

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