FRIDAY, July 18, 2025 (HealthDay News) — A new IVF technique helped eight babies in the U.K. avoid serious inherited diseases, and scientists are calling it a breakthrough. All eight children were born using a method that uses DNA from three people: the mother, the father and a donor.

Scientists at Newcastle University used a new IVF technique that combines a mother’s egg and father’s sperm with a second egg from a donor woman in order to prevent a child from inheriting mitochondrial DNA disease from their mother.

The genetic material from the donor makes up less than 1% of the baby born by using the experimental IVF technique.