Ethical and legal issues in mitochondrial transfer

27 April 2016

The US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine recently provided conditional endorsement for mitochondrial transfer. While its approach is more conservative in some respects than that of the United Kingdom (which passed its own regulations in 2015), it marks a significant policy development for a potentially large implementer of this emerging intervention. In this perspective, we consider some of the ethical and legal aspects of these policy responses.