Photo | AP
Washington: A US advisory board debated a controversial new technique on Wednesday that would use DNA from three people to produce embryos free of a particular type of hereditary disease.
The panel, which provides independent advice to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), weighed whether a procedure that replaces part of a human egg cell with that of another is safe for clinical trials.
Supporters of “three-parent in vitro fertilisation” point to the technique’s huge medical potential, while detractors say it could lead to custom-made “designer babies.”It has only been tested on monkey embryos so far.
The panel’s chairman, Evan Snyder, suggested the time may not be right to proceed to human trials.
“There is overall a great concern for the well-being of these kids,” he said at the meeting, according to participants.
“I think there was a sense of the committee that at this particular point in time, there was probably not enough data either in animals or in vitro to conclusively move on to human trials,” Mr Snyder said.
( Source : AFP )
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