Michigan Technology Law Review Article 5 2021 Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy: Let the Science Decide Sabrina K. Glavota University of Michigan Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mtlr Part of the Health Law and Policy Commons, Legislation Commons, and the Science and Technology Law Commons Recommended Citation Sabrina K. Glavota, Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy: Let the Science Decide, 27 MICH. TECH. L. REV. 345 (2021). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mtlr/vol27/iss2/5 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Technology Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. MITOCHONDRIAL REPLACEMENT THERAPY: LET THE SCIENCE DECIDE Sabrina K. Glavota* Abstract Mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT) is an in vitro fertilization technique designed to prevent women who are carriers of mitochondrial diseases from passing on these heritable genetic diseases to their children. It is an innovative assisted reproductive technology that is only legal in a small number of countries. The United States has essentially stagnated all opportunities for research and clinical trials on MRT through a rider in H.R.2029 – Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016. The rider bans clinical trials on all therapies in which a human embryo is intentionally altered to include a heritable genetic modification. This note argues that the rider should be amended to permit therapies such as MRT, which do not create artificial DNA sequences, while continuing to prohibit clinical trials on germline therapies that modify the sequence of a gene.