Re:UK to allow babies from three people
by m_mueller on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @09:20PM
(#8994959)
It seems to me that the 'three people' metaphor is a bit misguided. I'd look at it as an organ donor-ship to an embryo - just a special organ that gets copied into every cell.
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Re:UK to allow babies from three people
by geographomics on Tuesday February 03, 2015 @09:52PM
(#8995060)
I think "three people" is okay as it correctly gets across how many contributors there are of genetic and other biological material.
Some other sources have been referring to "three-parent babies" though, which doesn't seem right, as the mitochondrial donor has no maternal role or rights to the baby.
It's not, really, it's the other way around. The "mother's" nucleus is transplanted into the donor's nucleus-less egg (which has all the mitochondria). The appropriate analogy would be transplanting one person's brain into another person's body.