Tina’s Turner for a musical
UK regulator approves therapy to give hope to DNA disease mums
TINA Turner is the latest star to have her life made into a West End musical.
The 77-year-old Simply the Best singer has signed a deal to bring the show to London in 2018.
It will be created by the producers of Sister Act.
Tina has sold 100 million records in a 50-year career. She quit touring in 2009 and settled in Switzerland.
Other pop legends to get the musical treatment include Abba and Queen.
A source said: “Tina’s really excited.” I LOST my eight-month daughter Lily to mitochondrial disease in 2007. Now I run the Lily Foundation to fund research and support other families.
Before Lily I had two healthy babies and had no idea I was a carrier. There’s no cure and I had to watch it slowly take my baby.
Knowing you carry a deadly gene that will more than likely be passed on to future children is a double blow. This is a huge step forward and I’m overjoyed that parents will be able to have a child that is their own genetically but free from this awful condition.
To help raise money go to thelilyfoundation.org.uk
Today’s decision means at-risk parents may soon have the chance of a healthy child
SALLY CHESHIRE CHAIRWOMAN OF REGULATOR HFEA THIS opens the door genetically modified designer babies, which gives some children an advantage over others. Already, bioethicists are arguing that allowing mitochondrial replacement means there is no logical basis for resisting GM babies, so it is a slippery slope.
It is not the only way to avoid sick babies. A safe technique, egg donation, is already available. All this adds is allowing the mother to be the baby’s genetic parent – a social, not a medical, benefit.
The embryo manipulations can pose severe risks to the children born through them by disrupting the patterns of how genes are used in different cells, which can lead to birth defects.
BRITAIN has become the first country to approve three-parent babies – with our first delivery expected late next year.
The controversial move – involving two women and one man – is intended to prevent children being born with potentially fatal genetic mitochondrial disease.
Symptoms include muscle weakness, blindness, deafness, seizures, learning disabilities, diabetes and heart failure.
The pioneering technique uses a healthy donor egg as well as the mother’s egg and father’s sperm. DNA from the mum’s egg is put in the donor one, which has been stripped of its own. The mum’s faulty genes are also replaced, however everything that defines physical and personality traits still comes from the parents.
The process was been given the go-ahead by regulator the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.
LIFE-CHANGING
Chairwoman Sally Cheshire said: “Today’s historic decision means parents at very high risk of having a child with mitochondrial disease may soon have the chance of a healthy, genetically related child. This is life-changing for those families.”
Doctors at the University of Newcastle, which developed the advanced form of IVF, have already appealed for donor eggs.
They hope to treat 25 women a year using NHS cash.
Prof Sir Doug Turnbull, director of the university’s Wellcome Centre, said: “Today’s decision paves the way [to] an NHS-funded package of care.”
Critics claim unforeseen problems may occur. And Dr David King, of Human Genetics Alert, warned: “This opens the door to the world of geneticallymodified designer babies.”
While the UK is the first nation to legalise three-person babies, the first was born earlier this year. New York medics treated a Jordanian couple in Mexico to dodge regulators.