Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy: In-Vitro Fertilization

Words: 936
Pages: 4
Open Document
Genetic Modification is a process of removing the DNA from one organism and adding it to another. The genetically modified organism can then carry out new functions due to the new genetic characteristics, which have been inserted into the organism. This is very common in crops such as tomatoes and corn. Tomatoes have been genetically modified to last for a longer time where as corn had been modified to immediately kill the insects that eat it.

In 1974, Stanley Cohen, Annie Chang and Herbert Boyer were successful in creating the world’s first genetically modified DNA organismOver the years, genetic modification has evolved to such a degree that scientists can now successfully modify human DNA.

All human beings on the planet are not born …show more content…
Now, scientists have used genetic modification to get rid of all diseases related to the mitochondria by a procedure called Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy. The mitochondrion of a child is inherited solely from the mother. This is because, after fertilization, only the cytoplasm of the egg cell is present in the embryo as shown in Fig 2. So, to combat any mitochondrial diseases, scientists replace the unhealthy mitochondrion of the mother with healthy mitochondria from a …show more content…
In this technique, the eggs from a woman are extracted by a minor surgery. Then the pronuclei in the donor egg is discarded and is replaced by the pronuclei from the mothers egg as shown in Fig 3. After this, the egg and sperm are placed in a controlled chamber where the egg gets fertilized a few hours after being placed in the chamber. The resulting fertilized egg cell is kept in the chamber for a few days after the fertilization. It is constantly monitored to ensure the embryo is growing in a healthy manner. When the doctors are convinced the embryo is growing healthily, the embryo is implanted back in the woman’s womb. If the embryo sticks to the womb and continues growing, the embryo grows into a baby and the woman becomes pregnant. As a result, these children contain DNA from not only two, but three biological parents: DNA in the nucleus from the mother and the father and the DNA in the mitochondria from the donor. This process ensures that children get rid of any mitochondrial disease which could have affected them if this procedure had not have taken
Show More

Related Documents: Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy: In-Vitro Fertilization

Hoffman 1Morgan HoffmanMrs L Smith 1BArgumentative Essay

as Somatic Cell Gene Therapy, “specific genes are targeted in precise organs and tissues, skin, bones, blood, and connective tissues without affecting genes in the eggs or sperm, determining the gender of the fetus” (Darnovsky 3). Somatic Cell Gene Therapy can best be described as “the repair or replacement of a defective gene” (Nika 2). According to Marcy Darnovsky, “roughly 1,000 to 4,000 children born in the United States each year will develop a Hoffman 2 Mitochondrial disease, most by age 10…

Words 696 - Pages 3