Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, following the award by the Licence Committee of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority of a licence to Centre 0017 to carry out pronuclear transfer between embryos to prevent transmission of serious mitochondrial disease, what safeguards Centre 0017 has put in place to ensure that early pronuclear transfer will take place during treatment at precisely the same epigenetic stage in donor and recipient embryos, given the rapid rate of DNA demethylation and the different rates of embryo development at the early pronuclear stage.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has advised the expert panel considered all the evidence that it believed was relevant to the safety and efficacy of mitochondrial donation techniques. The panel did not make any recommendations relating to epigenetics and so the HFEA has placed no such requirements on centres wishing to offer mitochondrial donation.