http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7227861.stm
Three-parent embryo formed in lab
IVF treatment
The scientists have created the embryo in the lab
Scientists believe they have made a potential breakthrough in the treatment of serious disease by creating a human embryo with three separate parents.
The Newcastle University team believe the technique could help to eradicate a whole class of hereditary diseases, including some forms of epilepsy.
The embryos have been created using DNA from a man and two women in lab tests.
It could ensure women with genetic defects do not pass the diseases on to their children.
It is human beings they are experimenting with
Josephine Quintavalle
Comment on Reproductive Ethics
'Our aim is to help children'
The technique is intended to help women with diseases of the mitochondria - mini organelles that are found within individual cells.
They are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because they generate most of the cell's energy.
Faults in the mitochondrial DNA can cause around 50 known diseases, some of which lead to disability and death.
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