Biotechnology/Mitochondrial Donation Essay

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Table of Contents

1.        Introduction        3

2.        Aplication        4

A.        What is three parent babies?        4

B.        How it works?        4

3.        Ethical Factor        5

4.        Conclusion        5

5.        Bibliography        6

6.        Autoevaluation        6

1. Introduction

Mitochondrial disease occurs when mitochondria inside the cell has failures, malfunctions or isn’t well structure. Mitochondria is the the organelle in charge of creating 90% of cell’s energy, that’s why it’s so important because if mitochondria have failures it will make cells fail, organs fail and complete organisms. It’s important because without energy cells will not function. These failures could lead to diseases, syndromes…

Some disorders mitochondrial problems could create in human body could be; heart failure, visual problems, different kinds of syndromes such as Leigh syndrome, neurological problems, muscle weakness… So as observed the organs and parts from the human body which need more energy will be the ones which have diseases. These diseases even could lead to death depending on how big is the malfunction. Mitochondrial problems have no cure but can be treated and in most of cases is an inherited disease, the other cases they get the disease because other factors such as mitochondrial toxins.

The disease can be inherited because when fertilization occurs each parent gives one pair of chromosomes, so each one gives a piece of DNA that will be inherited to the zygote, while mitochondria contains mtDNA contains a different and own piece of DNA and is only inherited from the mother because when the sperm gets into the egg it loses the mtDNA because egg degradation), so if the mother has mitochondrial disease there is a 100% probabilities that that disease will be inherited.

About biotechnology, is how it’s combined technology with biology to create and develop new discoveries, tools, advances for improving our lives conditions. Talking about genetics some example of biotechnology could be in vitro fertilization, which is when some problems may be taken when trying to do fertilization so the fertilization has to be done in labs.

Concerning mitochondrial disease biotechnology is being applied to find solutions for this problem and until now they get to one technique that create offspring with a mother with mitochondrial disease without having the disease inherited. This technique is called “three parent babies”[pic 2]

United Kingdom was the first country to approve of the three parent babies in 24 February 2015.

^[1] Marcelo Garnica, one of six cases of Leigh Syndrome in Chile. ("Padres de niño con síndrome de Leigh piden apoyo para seguir manteniéndolo | soyosorno.cl", 2017)

1. Aplication

1. What is three parent babies?

Three parent babies is the new solution biotechnology found to mitochondrial diseases. It doesn’t stop the disease but it prevents it and stops the cases which occur by inheritance, which are almost all of them. Briefly, it consists in having fertilization with three individuals; the parents and a mitochondria donor. United Kingdom was the first country to approve of the three parent babies in 24 February 2015, and some other countries started to join, although not all of them allow it because ethical issues.

1. How it works?

Currently they are two main techniques for three parent babies;

• The first technique consists on once the egg with unhealthy mitochondria is fertilized the parents’ nucleus is removed and inserted in the donor’s embryo (because the donor has also been fertilized) with healthy mitochondria which previously has the nucleus removed and destroyed.  
• The second technique, which has been proven to be the more efficient, consists on collecting to eggs, one from the mother with unhealthy mitochondria and one from the donor. Then we extract the nucleus from the mother and we insert it in the egg from the donor which nucleus will be removed previously. So the egg will be fertilised after this process.

These images from “Three parent babies essay” from Jack The, that studied in The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology show very clearly the two techniques used for three parent babies occur:

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^[2] Method 1 (2017). Dulwich.org.uk.

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^[3] Method 2 (2017). Dulwich.org.uk.

1. Ethical Factor

For deciding whether it’s ethical or not first is needed to understand the meaning of ethical; ethical means: Equitable, fair, and just dealing with people that, although pragmatically flexible according to the situation and times, conforms to self-imposed high standards of public conduct.^[4] What does ethical mean? definition and meaning. (2017).

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