In 1997, Scientists implanted 30 human embryos with DNA materials obtained from a person other than their parents. The scientists will extract some mitochondrial DNA from a female person and implant them in the embryo. In essence the unborn baby will have three parents, a father and two mothers - one biological and the other one an mtDNA donor. This is the first known successful experiment on genetically enhanced humans.
The successful experiment was later published in an American medical journal in the same year. In 2001, The Oxford Journals made a reference to the genetically enhanced human experiments.
The genetic transfer was conducted in the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science or IRMS and the facility is located at Saint Barnabas, New Jersey. The experiment was controversial back then and as it is today. The implantation of a third person's mtDNA was designed to prevent the embryo from inheriting the mtDNA defects of the biological mother.
However, IRMS has yet to confirm the health status of the embryos who are probably high school seniors by now. At least 17 of those human experiments are in the United States, while the rest are living in other parts of the world. Despite the success of the genetically enhance human experiments, the American Food and Drug Administration has put a stop on further experiments with genetic transfers. The FDA maintained that it has jurisdiction over such experiments since they are considered "biological products".
If the FDA thinks this will prevent the spread of genetically enhanced humans among the rest of us then it's already too late. If all those 30 embryos survived and have children of their own, then they will spread their enhanced DNA to them. Within a few generations their numbers will be a huge impact on the rest of the human population, not only in the U.S. but in the whole world as well. It is worth to mention that the IRMS experiment was not intended to create a race of super humans but to cure the babies of any mtDNA defects that they may inherit.
