MPs have backed mitochondrial donation techniques aimed at preventing serious inherited diseases by 382 to 128, majority 254, in an historic Commons vote to legalise the creation of IVF babies with DNA from three people.
Britain will become the first country in the world to allow the procedure in law and Health Minister Jane Ellison told MPs the techniques offered the "only hope" for some women who carry the disease to have "healthy, genetically-related children" who will not suffer from the "devastating and often fatal consequences" of mitochondrial disease.
But the measure was bitterly opposed by some MPs who warned it was a "red line" which Parliament should not cross.
Dr Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, said: "This is a vote of confidence in the patients, scientists, doctors and ethicists who have worked hard for a decade to explain this complex research to politicians, the public and the media, and in the exemplary process for reviewing scientific, ethical and public opinion led by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority."
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