Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether the experiments recommended by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's expert review panel in the publications, Scientific review of the safety and efficacy of methods to avoid mitochondrial disease through assisted conception, published in April 2011, and Scientific review of the safety and efficacy of methods to avoid mitochondrial disease through assisted conception: update, published in March 2013, on epigenetic modifications and gene expression with a range of makers for blastocyst cell types or embryos derived from the maternal spindle transfer or pronuclear transfer technique therapies have been concluded; and in which peer-reviewed journal his Department plans to publish the findings of those experiments.

We are advised that good progress is being made with the experiments recommended by the Expert Panel convened by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) and that the scientists involved hope to be able to provide an update shortly.

The HFEA has advised that the following research has been completed for the Maternal Spindle Transfer technique:

- karyotype analysis and comparative genomic hybridisation/copy number variation arrays of embryos derived from maternal spindle transfer; and

- detailed analysis of epigenetic modifications and gene expression, with a range of markers for blastocyst cell types or embryos derived from maternal spindle transfer.

The results were published in Nature in 2013 and further details were provided, in supplementary information from Mitalipov et al, to the Expert Panel convened by the Authority.

At the time of writing the 2014 report, to the Panel’s knowledge the relevant results relating to Pronuclear Transfer technique had not been published in a peer-reviewed journal.