Faculty
Diana Alecsandru
Spain
Diana Alecsandru
Richard Anderson
UK
Richard Anderson
Richard Anderson is Elsie Inglis Professor of Clinical Reproductive Science at the University of Edinburgh and co-Director of the MRC Centre for Reproductive Health. He trained in Edinburgh, with Subspecialty training in Reproductive Medicine as a Lecturer with David Baird before a year in San Diego. He has interests in both female and male fertility, and is a member of the ESHRE Executive Committee and the HFEA Scientific and Clinical Advances Advisory Committee.
Ofer Fainaru
Israel
Ofer Fainaru
Ofer Fainaru, MD, PhD Director of IVF Unit and Sperm Bank, Rambam Medical Center; Head of the Laboratory of Reproductive Sciences at Clinical Research Institute Rambam (CRIR); Assistant Professor at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology; Completed his MD Degree Summa Cum Laude (1998) at Tel Aviv University and his PhD at the Department of Molecular Genetics (2005), Weizmann Institute of Science. He was certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology Summa Cum Laude (2006), Tel Aviv Souraski Medical Center. Dr. Fainaru completed his Postdoctorate Fellowship (2008) at The Vascular Biology Program, Harvard Medical School, and a Clinical Fellowship in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility (2009), University of Toronto. Honors and awards: European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) (2007), Fulbright (2006) and Rothschild (2006) fellowships; Legacy research grant from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) (2009); Meyer Foundation (2011); Sima Leor Foundation grant (2012); Israeli Ministry of Health, Chief Scientist grant (2014) Crown Family Foundation grant (2016). Executive committee member of The Israeli Fertility Association and the Israeli Society for Placenta Research. Research interests include fertility preservation and ovarian reserve, angiogenesis in reproduction and cancer, the role of innate immune cells in angiogenesis and understanding the molecular mechanism of tumor cell – immune cell interactions. Dr. Fainaru authored more than 60 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals, book chapters, and responsible for several international patents.
Juan Antonio García Velasco
Spain
Juan Antonio García Velasco
Chief Scientific Officer – IVI RMA Global, Medical Director IVI RMA Madrid, Spain and Full Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid, Spain
David Gardner
Australia
David Gardner
David is the Scientific Director of Melbourne IVF and a Distinguished Professor in the School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne.
He completed his PhD (1987) at the University of York. In 1988 he moved to Harvard Medical School, after which he moved to Monash, Australia, in 1989. In 1997 became the Scientific Director of the Colorado Centre for Reproductive Medicine in Denver, where his work on human embryo culture conditions revolutionised how human IVF is performed today with the introduction of blastocyst transfer.
In 2007 he was appointed Professor and Chair of Department at the University of Melbourne and promoted to the level of Distinguished Professor in 2018. In 2017 he became the Scientific Director of Melbourne IVF. He has published 300 papers and chapters and has edited 15 books, culminating in over 30,000 citations and an H index of 99.
In 2017 in recognition of his many significant contributions to reproductive sciences he was elected as a Fellow into the Australian Academy of Science (FAA) and further was the recipient of the Distinguished Researcher Award from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine.
Jigal Haas
Israel
Jigal Haas
Sonia Herraiz
Spain
Sonia Herraiz
Dr. Sonia Herraiz is a Miguel Servet principal investigator at IVI Foundation-Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria la Fe, research scholar at Yale University and part of the Fertility Preservation Unit at La Fe University Hospital in Valencia (Spain).
Devorah Heymann
Israel
Devorah Heymann
I am an Australian doctor, in my final year of obstetrics and gynaecology training at Kaplan Hospital, in Israel. I am passionate about research and IVF and am privileged to be the author of the first Cochrane review in gynaecology and fertility in Israel. I am also the director and founder of The Alon Project, a non-for-profit organisation helping tackle the problem of traumatic birth injuries in rural Uganda through surgical camps and obstetric fistula prevention programs.
Roy Homburg
UK
Roy Homburg
Professor Homburg is Head of Research at the Homerton Fertility Centre in London and Hewitt Fertility Centre in Liverpool. As a fertility specialist, Professor Homburg has published 250+ research articles and chapters and written or edited 11 books. He has been invited to lecture in all five continents at frequent intervals and has won prizes for his research at the British Fertility Society (twice), the ASRM, ESHRE and the Israel Fertility Society (3 times). He has served as an associate editor for Human Reproduction and Human Reproduction Update and is the international advisor to the ESHRE SIG on reproductive endocrinology and principal coordinator for ISIF. Professor Homburg’s main interests are the treatment of infertility in general, PCOS, ovulation induction, ovarian stimulation and IVF.
Mahmoud Huleihel
Israel
Mahmoud Huleihel
Prof. Huleihel is a pioneer in developing and using the 3D in vitro culture systems to induce spermatogenesis, using methylcellulose and agars as scaffold and microfluidic chip systems. These systems enable mimicking the 3D structure and conditions of the seminiferous tubules.
His group is considered as one of the national and international leaders in this field. They were the first group to report the generation of sperm-like cells in vitro.
They already published more than 120 papers in the field of reproduction, spermatogenesis and male fertility preservation.
Joaqin Llacer
Spain
Joaqin Llacer
Yossi Mizrachi
Australia
Yossi Mizrachi
Dr. Yossi Mizrachi has completed his training at the Edith Wolfson Medical Centre in Israel. He is currently a reproductive endocrinology fellow at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. Dr. Mizrachi is a very enthusiastic researcher in the field of ART, and has published more than 70 peer-reviewed articles.
Denny Sakkas
USA
Denny Sakkas
Dr. Denny Sakkas received his undergraduate training at the University of Melbourne, Australia and received his Doctorate of Philosophy at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He has been the Laboratory Director of IVF units in Europe and the USA and has extensive experience in clinical IVF and reproductive research. Dr Sakkas is currently Chief Scientific Officer at Boston IVF and remains as an Associate Professor at the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the Yale University School of Medicine.
Gerald Schatten
USA
Gerald Schatten
Professor Gerald Schatten is in the Departments of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Cell Biology, and Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh’s Schools of Medicine and Engineering, President of UNESCO’s International Cell Research Organization and an eloquent advocate for research in reproduction, development, regeneration and stem cells as well as bioethics and equity. Prof. Schatten has just been awarded (Summer 2022) the NIH’s inaugural Outstanding Mentor for Excellence in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility honoring him, from among over 1600 nominees, as an ‘outstanding mentor… who has demonstrated compelling commitments and contributions to enhancing DEIA in the biomedical sciences.’
Dick Schoot
The Netherlands
Dick Schoot
Following the study medicine (Radboud University Nijmegen), Dick Schoot was trained as gynaecologist in Westeinde ziekenhuis the Hague and Erasmus University Rotterdam. He worked for several years as a staff member at the Academic Hospital in Rotterdam. Here he specialized in fertility treatments and IVF (board certificate Fertility Specialist). During this period he was working on the department ultrasound and prenatal diagnosis. His defence of his PhD Thesis was on “Follicular dynamics and Follicle stimulating hormones”. Following this period he was appointed as gynaecologist in a large University affiliated teaching hospital in Eindhoven (Catharina Hospital). He gained clinical experience and mastered in fetal medicine (Kings College 2003). Endoscopic surgery in infertility was his main working domain. He started research on uterine dynamics with TU/Eindhoven in 2012. He published 43 pear reviewed scientific articles. In 2015 he was appointed as Professor at the University of Ghent, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. He is co-owner of patents concerning ultrasound speckle-tracking of uterine dynamics.
Seang Lin Tan
Canada
Seang Lin Tan
Dr. Tan is a Full Professor and holds the James Edmund Dodds endowed chair in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at McGill University. He served as Chairman of Department from December 1994 to June 2010. During his time in this position he created 3 endowed chairs and 8 named fellowships.
An internationally recognized infertility expert and a pioneer in the simplification of in-vitro fertilization (IVF), Dr. Tan was trained and mentored in London, UK, by Professor Robert Edwards, the inventor of IVF and 2010 Nobel Laureate in Medicine.
In 1996 Dr. Tan founded the McGill Reproductive Centre (MRC), serving as its Medical Director until June 2010. He led the team that has produced 10 world or Canadian firsts—including the world’s first air transport IVF and ICSI pregnancies—and is a pioneer in Canada in the use of IVM of human oocytes for the treatment of infertility and vitrification of oocytes to preserve fertility in cancer patients. In 2005, the team was the first in the world to achieve a livebirth from an egg that was matured through IVM, vitrified and then thawed. Work performed by members of his team has been published in prestigious scientific journals including Nature, the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet.
In August 2010, Dr. Tan founded the Montreal Reproductive Centre, now known as OriginElle Fertility Clinic and Women’s Health Centre, which aims to combine the clinical and scientific excellence achieved at the MRC with the same personalized service provided by Drs. Tan and Edwards at the clinic they founded in London.
Dr. Tan has published 17 books and over 400 original scientific papers, book chapters and review articles. He has been on the editorial board of nine medical journals and is a member of the FIGO and Gynecology Expert Advisory Panels on Reproductive Medicine and Ultrasound and a fellow of the International Academy on Human Reproduction. In 2008, he received the Singapore Lecture Gold Medal from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of the United Kingdom in recognition of his significant scientific contribution to the field of obstetrics and gynecology. He received the 1999 Resolve Award from the National Infertility Association of the United States for outstanding contribution in the field of ultrasound. He has also been awarded the Howard Eddy Gold Medal by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and the MRCOG Gold Medal by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in the United Kingdom. In 2003, he earned an MBA degree with distinction from the New York University/London School of Economics/HEC Grande Ecole Paris TRIUM Executive MBA Program.
Joseph Schenker
Israel
Joseph Schenker
Gamal Serour
Egypt
Gamal Serour
Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and former Dean Faculty of Medicine Al Azhar University. Past Secretary General IFFS and Past FIGO President. President African Federation of Fertility Societies and Egyptian Fertility and Sterility Society. One of the three founders of the 1st Egyptian IVF & ET center Cairo. Laureate of RCOG Gold Medal 2009, UN Prize 2013, and Egypt National Prize for Science 2018.
Lee Shulman
USA
Lee Shulman
Sherman Silber
USA
Sherman Silber
Dr. Sherman Silber, a renowned pioneer in microsurgery and infertility, is considered one of the world’s leading authorities on IVF, mini-IVF, sperm retrieval, ICSI, vasectomy reversal, male infertility, tubal ligation reversal, egg and embryo freezing, ovary transplantation and the reproductive biological clock.
He has operated all over the world, including Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iran, Behrain, Israel and Qatar.
Sherman J. Silber, M.D., and his team have pioneered most of the “miracle” infertility treatments now accepted around the world for both male and female infertility.
Carlos Simon
Spain
Carlos Simon
Board Certified and Full Professor of Ob/Gyn at the University of Valencia, Spain; Senior Lecturer PT, BIDMC Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA, Adjunct Professor, Department of Ob/Gyn, Baylor College of Medicine, USA, and President of Carlos Simon Foundation devoted to the research in womens health.
My main interest is in the understanding of the human embryonic implantation process during the preconception period considering as key elements the embryo, the maternal endometrium, and the cross-communication between them using different scientific perspectives.
He is author of 521 publications in international peer-review journals, adding up to an accumulated impact factor of 2,432.52. His papers have received a total of 39,206 cites with an average of 78 cites/paper. His Google Scholar is 113. He is editor of 20 books, and supervisor of 42 PhD Thesis.
Pubmed Publication List: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/simon_c
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=nA_MhRMAAAAJ&hl=es
Personal Website: www.carlos-simon.com
Jan Tesarik
Spain
Jan Tesarik
Ariel Weissman
Israel
Ariel Weissman
Professor Ariel Weissman graduated the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical School in 1988. In 1994 he completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Kaplan Medical Center, Rehovot, where he spent another two years working as a senior physician at the IVF unit. Prof. Weissman then pursued a 2-year research and clinical fellowship with Prof. Bob Casper at the Division of Reproductive Sciences, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. His main focus of research was transplantation of human ovarian tissue in immuno deficient mice. Upon returning to Israel in 1998, Prof. Weissman joined the IVF unit at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Wolfson Medical Center, Holon, Tel Aviv University Sackler Faculty of Medicine where he currently holds a position of an associate Professor. Together with David Gardner PhD, Colin Howles PhD, and Zeev Shoham M.D., Prof. Weissman has published the “Textbook of Assisted Techniques: Laboratory and Clinical Perspectives”, which is one of the leading books in the field of ART.
Bryan Woodward
UK
Bryan Woodward
John Yovich
Australia
John Yovich
PIVET Medical Director, Professor John Yovich is widely acknowledged for his pioneering work in In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) resulting in Western Australia’s first IVF baby delivered in 1982 and the establishment of PIVET Medical Centre.
PIVET was a pioneer unit and meant Western Australia was the second state after Victoria to generate IVF pregnancies.
Professor Yovich introduced many other unique modalities to assist infertile couples including micro-surgery, the use of ultrasound for the reproductive system in males & females, the introduction of new rapid hormone assays and pioneer work in advanced laparoscopic surgery for pathologies in the female pelvis – including fibroids, adenomyosis, endometriosis and pelvic adhesions.
Professor Yovich established Australia’s first independent and free-standing IVF facility, PIVET Medical Centre in 1981, which he still heads as Medical Director, along with Cairns Fertility Centre (Queensland) which he established in 2009.
Most recently Professor Yovich was appointed Adjunct Clinical Professor, School of Biomedical Sciences in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Curtin University.
Professor Yovich has published extensively on wide-ranging areas of reproductive medicine, recently reporting on growth hormone use to improve oocyte quality and advanced gonadotrophin algorithms to safely optimise pregnancy productivity rates.