Hyderabad: Babies inheriting their parents’ diseases has been an age-old problem that the medical and scientific fraternity have been fighting. And scoring a point for researchers are Pradeep Reddy and his team at the Salk Institute, who came up with a gene-editing technique that might prevent expecting mothers with mitochondria disease from passing on the hereditary disease to their unborn babies.
Pradeep Reddy, 33, who finished his schooling from Sri Sai Public School and degree in biotechnology from Govt. City College in the city says, “Basically, what we did was create a technique, preventing the transmission of mitochondrial diseases from mother to child, a disease for which there is no cure.”
While Pradeep and his team took close to two years to work on this technique, he does accept that work keeps him busy most of the time. “Despite my busy schedule, I make it a point to visit my parents who are still based in Hyderabad. Things have changed now, but when I was in college we would roam around the city and have a lot of fun,” says Pradeep, adding, he loved visiting the Birla Mandir and Shilparamam.
Shortly after his degree in the city, Pradeep left for Sweden in 2004. “During my PhD (in Sweden), I studied the signalling pathways that are important for the development of eggs in the ovary.”
Currently, I am also involved in developing different techniques to enhance fertility in women which decreases with age,”adds the 33-year-old. In the gene-editing technique, Pradeep and his team use a combination of molecules to cut out the “mutated mitochondrial DNA in cells”. Mitochondrial diseases are caused by mutations in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). In most cases, mutated mtDNA coexists in the cells with non-mutated mtDNA.
While Pradeep is busy with his research, he does try to make time for family. “I have two sons Karthik who is 6 years and Krithik who is 3. We go travelling whenever time permits,” he says.
During their research, Pradeep and his team prevented the transmission of mitochondrial disease from a mouse to its babies and the baby mice developed normally. “We used the mouse model that carried two different mitochondrial DNAs to demonstrate the prevention of transmission of mutated mtDNA to the next generation. We basically used ‘molecular scissors’ that specifically targeted and eliminated the mutated mtDNA in the eggs/germline and prevented their transmission to the next generation,” explains Pradeep.
Since mitochondria is only inherited from the mother, the diseases caused by mutations in the mtDNA are maternally transmitted. While this does have the potential to prevent babies from suffering from hereditary diseases, Pradeep believes that it will take some time until its practically used.
“We first need to prove the safety and efficacy of this technology before it can be tested on humans. Nevertheless, as the next step, evaluation of the safety and efficacy of this method in the egg cell or early embryos of mitochondrial disease patients will be necessary. Once these aspects are carefully addressed, the potential human application of this technology will need to be discussed. Therefore it is very difficult for us to predict the time frame of these studies,” adds Pradeep.
