Eight babies with DNA from three people born in world-first project

Eight babies who were each created with DNA from three people have now been born. This is why it will make a difference.

DNA from three people has been used for eight babies.

Australia is on track to create a baby with three people’s DNA as early as next year, after the United Kingdom revealed eight such children had been born through the technology.

The landmark research from the UK’s world-first program offers hope to thousands of families desperate to spare their children from a group of debilitating, life-threatening genetic conditions called mitochondrial disease.

Mitochondrial donation sees an embryologist use egg and sperm from one couple, plus a healthy egg from a donor to create an embryo, sometimes called a “three parent baby”.

The vast majority of the child’s genetic material is from their biological parents, but most of the mum’s mitochondrial DNA — which carries the disease-causing mutations — is essentially swapped for mitochondrial DNA from the healthy egg.

Co-author Professor Mary Herbert, who co-led the UK’s program and is now working at Monash University on Australia’s project, said the results were “enormously satisfying”.

“I hope that the successful outcomes reported today will help in navigating the rather complex regulatory system here in Australia,” she said.

Monash University Professor Mary Herbert was a pioneer of mitochondrial donation technology in the United Kingdom. Picture: Monash University

Australia became the second country in the world to legalise mitochondrial donation in 2022, allowing the mitoHOPE program at Monash University to begin work towards a clinical trial.

mitoFoundation advocacy manager Clare Stuart said they hoped to start recruiting patients in early 2026, pending approval.

“The results from the UK obviously demonstrate that it’s possible,” she said.

“It is safe and effective.

“We’re really excited to be one step closer to having this option available to Australian families who want to take it up.”

While a handful of births have been reported by private fertility clinics in other countries, the providers released limited data on outcomes for independent review.

But the UK reports, set to be published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday, detail the outcomes for eight de-identified children, with the oldest now five years old.

About 40 per cent of couples who took part had a baby, and a ninth pregnancy was underway at the time of reporting.

Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute and mitoHOPE head Professor John Carroll said the results showed the technology “was able to reduce the level of disease-causing mitochondrial DNA in the babies to levels that were either non-detectable or very low and below the threshold of disease”.

“Mitochondria … are what generate energy in our body,” he said.

“If you have mutations in those little bits of DNA that are in each of the mitochondria, then the energy making machine doesn’t work so well.

“Our cells don’t work so well, our tissue, our organs don’t work so well and we get sick.

“Obviously we have to follow the babies up for many years, but at this stage it’s a very positive outcome.”

Professor Herbert said the technology significantly reduced — but did not completely eliminate — a child’s risk, but this was still “enormously gratifying”.

Severe mitochondrial disease impacts about 60 Australian babies each year, and about 120,000 people are carriers.

Ms Stuart said some carriers had spent their lives watching family members live with devastating chronic illness and die in their early 40s and 50s, and feared for their future child.

“It’s something many community members describe as a ticking time bomb,” she said.

Ashlee, 28, welcomed the research into mitochondrial donation. Picture: Supplied.

“There are some types of mitochondrial disease where the parents can be minimally affected, but children have real life changing consequences and are dying before they even hit double digits.”

Brisbane’s Ashlee Greenhalgh, 28, lost most of her sight for several years as a child due to a form of the disease, called Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy.

She said her vision has now improved, but she then had to watch her mother and her “best friend”, her little brother, face the same vision loss.

“That was

“If I’m being completely truthful my childhood was kind of consumed by LHON.”

She said she had cried happy tears over this week’s news, and was incredibly grateful for Monash University’s work to bring the technology to Australia.

“I can’t express how thankful I am,” she said.

“A lot of things I cut myself off from ever thinking that was going to be a possibility for me.

“Suddenly now it is a possibility for me.

“To some people it might seem like such a small thing, but to me this has been really quite life-changing to have this possibility being given.

“The fear of being blamed or the fear of watching your child go through something you knew you could potentially forego by doing alternative options is a debilitating challenge.”

Originally published as Eight babies with DNA from three people born in world-first project