Doctors in the UK have been given permission to create the country's first "three-person" babies.
According to the
BBC, the child will be born two two women - both of whom are have mitochondrial diseases, which are passed down by the mum and can be fatal.
An advanced form of IVF, using a donor egg, the mother's egg and the father's sperm, is involved in the procedure.
The doctors at the Newcastle Fertility Centre will carry out the procedure.
The approval was issued by the UK Fertility Regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), on Friday.
The identities of the two women in the case were withheld, but the BBC notes that minutes from one of the HFEA's committee meetings said both parties had myoclonic epilepsy with ragged red fibres (MERRF syndrome), a rare mitochondrial diseases.
The organisation said that there was a "considerable risk" that any children the women had would have the disease passed on to them.
The technique involves the donation of a healthy mitochondria from a third person.
As mitochondria have their own DNA, the resulting children would have DNA from three people - but all physical and personality traits would still come from the parents.
The HFEA must give approval to every clinic and patient before the procedure can happen.
The Newcastle Fertility Centre was given the first licence to carry out the procedure int new UK in March. It hopes to help 25 couples every year.
