A team of scientists in Britain were granted official approval to create a human embryo using genetic material from two women, raising the future prospect of babies with a pair of mothers. The group from Newcastle University has been given the green light by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the government-appointed genetics and reproductive technology watchdogs for Britain, where such science is tightly regulated.The scientists will transfer the pro-nuclei -- the components of a human embryo nucleus -- made by one man and woman into an unfertilised egg from another woman.This technique is intended to help prevent mothers from passing on so-called mitochondrial diseases on to their unborn babies, genetic conditions caused by DNA outside the nucleus of a cell, in the mitochondria.
