Australia Moves Ahead Cautiously with ‘3-Parent IVF’

April 29, 2022

(Wired) – Australia has become the second country after the United Kingdom to legalize a fertility procedure that mixes genetic material from three people. The technique is meant to prevent couples from having children with certain debilitating disorders caused by faulty mitochondria, the energy-generating structures in our cells. But it’s controversial because it involves a genetic change that can be passed to future generations, so its rollout in Australia will be extremely cautious. On March 30, the Australian Senate passed the Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform Bill, also known as Maeve’s Law, named after a 6-year-old Australian girl with a mitochondrial disorder called Leigh syndrome. (Read More)