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A controversial technique that allows doctors to create babies from the DNA of three people has been approved in the UK.
The move has been taken to prevent babies being born with genetic diseases.
“Parents at very high risk of having a child with a life-threatening mitochondrial disease may soon have the chance of a healthy, genetically related child,” Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority chair Sally Cheshire said in a statement on Thursday.
In September, US-based doctors announced they had created the world’s first three-parent baby, according to news.com.au. The doctors travelled to Mexico to perform the methods as they hadn’t been approved in the United States.
The first such child could be born in the UK by the end of 2017, according to the BBC.
Clinics will need to apply to the HFEA for permission to use the techniques on a case-by-case basis.
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