The UK's fertility regulator has approved a three-person IVF procedure that seeks to eliminate mitochondrial diseases transmitted through maternal DNA. The procedure, backed by members of parliament and bioethics councils, was approved by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority on December 15, 2016, for use in specific cases where there is significant risk of developing serious mitochondrial disease. The three-person technique involves a donor oocyte from which the DNA is removed and reconstituted with spindle nuclei transferred from the mother, and sperm. The UK is the first country to legalize the process, though the first child born through spindle nuclear transfer was born in Mexico to a Jordanian couple. Physicians from the New Hope Fertility Center in New York who carried out the procedure reported at the American Society of Reproductive Medicine Scientific Congress & Expo on October 19 that following an uneventful pregnancy, they delivered a healthy boy, who was doing well three months later. According to a news report that day in Nature, a child conceived using the technique was born in China, and researchers in the Ukraine have said they have impregnated two women using a similar mitochondrial transfer technique called pronuclear transfer, which unlike the transfer of spindle nuclei, requires fertilization of both maternal and donor eggs, followed by the denuclearization of the fertilized donor egg. Both of these techniques, as well as a third mitochondrial replacement therapy, somatic cell nuclear transfer, carry the potential for carry-over of mutant mitochondrial DNA from the mother. Research suggests these mitochondria could outcompete the healthy donor mitochondria, causing disease in the child's tissues. In a November 30 Letter in Nature, researchers from Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, using spindle nuclear transfer to study neurological diseases, suggest that certain polymorphisms in mitochondrial DNA might amplify the maternal material, a situation that could be minimized by selecting compatible donor mitochondrial DNA.