Santiago Restrepo Castillo

In 2015, the United Kingdom became the first country to pass legislation allowing the use of mitochondrial donation technology, pronuclear transfer. The technique is designed to limit, through in vitro fertilization, the transmission of mitochondrial DNA diseases in babies born to women who are at high risk, and for which there is no cure. Two studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) describe the results of the first treatments performed to date, from which eight babies have been born by mitochondrial donation, with reduced risk of disease.

A team from the Netherlands has successfully edited pathogenic mutations in mitochondrial DNA in human cells, changes in DNA that cause disease, according to research published in PLoS Biology. The authors used a genetic tool known as a base editor. Until now, techniques derived from CRISPR have made it possible to correct mutations in nuclear DNA, and new techniques are being developed that allow mitochondrial DNA to be edited.