"...why they don't extract the mitochondria from one of the fathers cells..." I am not a biologist either, but... As far as I know, the difficulty lies in rem

"...why they don't extract the mitochondria from one of the fathers cells..." I am not a biologist either, but... As far as I know, the difficulty lies in removing the faulty mitochondria while keeping the health nucleus in-place and undamaged. Its easier to remove the nucleus from the egg. Mitochondria removal has been done with fertilised monkey eggs and unfertilised human aggs [1][2]. The monkey eggs were implanted and produced apparently healthy animals. I guess the ethical problem with trying this with human embryos is the risk of unforseen effects. [1] http://www.nature.com/news/dna-swap-technology-almost-ready-for-fertility-clinic-1.11651 http://www.nature.com/news/dna-swap-technology-almost-ready-... [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19710649 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19710649