The possibility of creating a baby from three parents moves a step closer after fertility watchdog gave the idea the green light.

14:44, UK, Wednesday 20 March 2013

Fertility regulators have paved the way for the Government to legalise the creation of IVF babies with three genetic parents.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) said the controversial technique should be allowed to prevent potentially-fatal diseases caused by defective mitochondria, the power-houses found in every cell.

It dismissed fears of critics, who say it is a slippery slope towards designer babies.

But it warned that any children born as a result of the technique should be monitored for years to come to ensure there were no long-term side effects.

Lisa Jardine, chair of the HFEA, said there had been extensive public consultation.

"The public is broadly in support of this as long as it is properly regulated," she said.

If a woman has defective mitochondria they will be passed to her children through her egg cell.

But scientists at Newcastle University have developed a technique for removing genetic information from the mother’s egg and putting it into a healthy egg from a donor that has been stripped of everything except the normal mitochondria.

It can then be fertilised with normal IVF techniques.

But around 0.2% of the resulting embryo's DNA comes from the mitochondria in the donated egg, the third parent.

The HFEA said children born as a result would have no legal right to know the identity of the donor. And parents could not be forced to tell children how they had been conceived.

In advice to ministers, the HFEA set out safeguards for the techniques which could affect future generations and help eradicate serious inherited diseases.

The HFEA did not explicitly ask for a change in the law but has left it up to ministers to decide whether they should ask Parliament to consent to the procedures.

Doug Turnbull, Professor of Neurology at Newcastle University, is in no doubt that his team is performing valuable work.

"What we should be doing is trying to help families, and women in particular, have healthy children," he said.

"I think it should be up to the mothers that carry these (mitochondrial) mutations to chose what sort of reproductive options they would like to have."

Nicola Bardett, 34, is one of the mothers who wants the law to be changed to allow Professor Turnbull's research to be used in humans.

The defective mitochondria in her family killed her mother and has made many relatives ill and she worries about the effect it will have on her four-year-old son.

"For a lot of them it's a waiting game to see what illness is going to come from the mitochondrial defect," she explained.

"This new technique to wipe out mitochondrial disease is going to stop so much suffering and so much heartbreak I can't see how it could be anything but a good thing," she added.

David King, from the independent group Human Genetics Alert, has campaigned against the new technique, describing it as highly dangerous.

"Since there is a safe alternative option in these cases, standard egg donation, the minor benefit of satisfying the mother's wish to be genetically related cannot justify the risks that the techniques create for the child or to society," he said.

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