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A woman who lost seven babies to mitochondrial disease had said she is “overwhelmed” by the decision of MPs to allow the creation of babies with DNA from three individuals instead of two parents.

BBC News reports that Sharon Bernardi from Sunderland passed on the rare genetic disorder Leigh’s disease when she and her husband Neil conceived their children.

Mitchondrial DNA from the mother is responsible for inherited diseases like Leigh’s disease. Genetic defects in a woman‘s mitochondria cells can result in babies being born with – or going on to develop – muscle wasting diseases, brain damage, heart failure and blindness.

Scientists at Newcastle University have developed a fertility technique involving fertilising an egg from the mother and another egg from a donor and combining the healthy cells of both.

Scientists fertilise two embryos and remove the nucleus from the mother’s embryo – which has mitochondria cells carrying a genetic disease – and implant the mother’s nucleus in the donor embryo from another woman, from which the nucleus has been removed, but which has healthy mitochondria cells.

The nucleus from the donor embryo is destroyed.

The new IVF technique means that a baby born as a result would in effect have three biological parents. It is estimated that babies born as a result of the technique would inherit 0.1% of their genes from the egg donor and any genetic influences from the donor would be passed down through successive generations. Mitochondria cells do not influence appearance, however – but are involved in the process of converting food into energy.

The UK is the first country to consider making the technique legal, enabling the creation of a baby from three individuals. It is estimated that around 150 babies could be born each year as a result. After a House of Lords vote needed to make the Commons vote law, the first baby born using the technique could be delivered in 2016.

Prime Minister David Cameron said:

“We're not playing god here – we're just making sure that two parents who want a healthy baby can have one.”

Lead researcher at Newcastle University, Professor Doug Turnbull, said the vote in favour was “an important hurdle in the development of this new IVF technique”.

He added that the House of Lords still had to vote – and the UK’s fertility regulator the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) still had to license the technique.

"This is important and something the UK should rightly be proud of,” Prof Turnbull added.

"Finally, I think the quality of the debate today shows what a robust scientific, ethical and legislative procedure we have in the UK for IVF treatments.”

In the Commons, 382 MPs voted in favour of the technique and 128 against.

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