Britain is today expected to become the first country in the world to legalise the creation of IVF babies with DNA from three people.
The House of Lords will almost certainly approve “mitochondrial transfer”, just three weeks after MPs voted by a majority of three to one in favour of the technique.
The procedure, which involves transferring a mother’s genes to a donor egg, would allow around 2,500 women in the UK to have their own genetic children without passing on devastating mitochondrial diseases.
Italian politicians warned the “human species as a whole” would be affected if the vote goes through because the procedure permanently alters the genetic material passed from generation to generation.
But England’s Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies appealed to the Lords to ignore the concerns.
She told Sky News: “Remember the families. There are children being born where they die within a few months or a few years of tragic disease – heart failure, muscle failure, brain failure. It is horrible.
“These families want to have healthy children. And this is a modified form of IVF that would allow that.”
The mitochondrial transfer technique has been pioneered by scientists at Newcastle University.
The baby would inherit from its mother all 20,000 genes that help determine characteristics such as height and hair colour.
But it would also inherit from the donor 37 genes that are found in the mitochondria, the batteries that fuel almost every cell.
The mitochondrial genes are only involved in energy production.
But David King of Human Genetics Alert said the technique was hazardous and unnecessary.
He said: “These diseases can be prevented through conventional egg donation – a reliable method that doesn’t risk the child’s health.
“All that these dangerous experimental techniques add is that that they allow the mother to be a genetic parent, which is not a medical benefit for anyone.”
The technique has already been cleared by scientific and ethics watchdogs. The public have also been consulted and broadly supported its use.
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