World's First Baby Born to Three Biological Parents

Miracles happen everyday, especially for these parents who just welcomed the first baby with DNA [...]

By Lindsay Caldwell

Miracles happen everyday, especially for these parents who just welcomed the first baby with DNA from three parents, New Scientist reports.


After waiting till Abrahim Hassan was 5-months-old, scientists are pleased to announce they have a happy healthy baby. They waited to go public with the announcement to ensure there was no genetic deadly gene from the mother, who is a carrier for Leigh syndrome, a rare inherited disorder that affects the central nervous system, and resulted in the death of her first two children.

Dr. Zhang had been working on the genetic "three parent technique" at the New Hope Fertility Center in New York City when the mother, Ibtisam Shaban of Jordan, and father consulted him.

Their religion did not allow them to destroy any embryos. Dr. Zhang tried a different route called spindle nuclear transfer which would prevent the baby from inheriting the rare gene. He implanted Shaban's eggs into a donor's egg that had the nucleus removed, but had Shaban's DNA and the donor's mitochondrial DNA. The donor's egg was fertilized with the husband's sperm. They implanted the embryo resulting in the pregnancy and birth of Abrahim.

Moving forward, Zhang will monitor Abrahim to make sure his mitochondria levels stay low.

On October 13, Dr. Zhang will release his findings to the American Reproductive Technology World Congress in New York.

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