Redefining women’s health with innovative solutions

Professor Albertini is an international acclaimed expert of assisted reproductive technologies and in vitro maturation. He received his PhD from Harvard University, conducted postdoctoral work at the University of Connecticut Health Center, then returned to Harvard Medical School as an Assistant Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology. He has held professorships at Tufts University School of Medicine and Kansas University Medical Center, was the Director of Laboratories at The Center for Human Reproduction in New York City, and continues to hold Visiting Scientist appointments at the CHR and Rockefeller University. Since 2009, he has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics, an official journal of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. In 2020, he joined the Bedford Research Foundation, continuing his work on stem cells and ovarian physiology. He is the recipient of many awards, including a Basil O’Connor fellowship from the March of Dimes, the Hammond Medal from the Society for Reproduction and Fertility (UK), and Founder’s Lectureship for the Australian Society of Reproductive Biology and is a Fellow of The International Society for In Vitro Fertilization. Professor Albertini has delivered more than 200 lectures worldwide and has served on scientific advisory boards or grant review councils for Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Scotland, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, and the USA.

Jaime M. Knopman, M.D., is a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist who serves as the Director of Fertility Preservation for CCRM Fertility of New York. After graduating Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Knopman received her medical degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine where she was elected to the AOA honor society. She completed both her residency training in Obstetrics and Gynecology as well as her subspecialty training in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility from NYU Medical Center. Dr. Knopman received numerous awards from NYU including the Robert F. Porges Award for the Graduating Honor Resident. During her fellowship training, she pursued several areas of research including fertility preservation for medical and elective indications. She has written several sentinel papers devoted to the topic of fertility preservation, specifically egg freezing for cancer patients, has been named to the Super Doctors Rising Stars list, was designated a 2019 New York Super Doctor, named in New York Magazine’s Top Doctors in 2020-2023, and a Castle Connolly Top Doctor 2019-2024 and designated an Exceptional Woman in Medicine. Dr. Knopman is a fellow in the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and an active member of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. She is the medical director of Chick Mission, a non-profit organization dedicated to the critical issues unique to young adult cancer patients with a focus on fertility challenges as a result of chemotherapy, surgery, radiation and/or drug treatment.

Dr. Pietro Bortoletto is a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist. He completed his residency in Obstetrics & Gynecology at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital/Massachusetts General Hospital Integrated Residency Program in Obstetrics and Gynecology in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a graduate of the Ronald O. Perelman and Claudia Cohen Center for Reproductive Medicine fellowship program at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City where he also obtained a Masters in Clinical and Translational Investigation at the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences. He is currently a Reproductive Medicine Specialist, Director of Reproductive Surgery, and Co-Director of Oncofertility Program at Boston IVF in Boston, Massachusetts. He is on staff at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology and a clinical instructor at the Harvard Medical School. In addition to his clinical role, Dr. Pietro Bortoletto currently serves as the Interactive Associate in Chief for Fertility & Sterility as well as Media Editor for F&S Reports.

Michel De Vos, MD, PhD, has worked as a gynaecologist since 2006 and currently is a Senior Medical Director at the Centre for Reproductive Medicine at Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel, Belgium and an Associate Professor in Reproductive Medicine at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He studied medicine in Ghent, Belgium, and holds a PhD in medicine from the University of Leeds, UK. In 2011, ESHRE and the European Board and College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (EBCOG) recognized him as a subspecialist in reproductive medicine and surgery. Michel has a keen interest in reproductive endocrinology, in vitro maturation of oocytes, and fertility preservation. He is a principal investigator of the FOTO (Freezing Ovarian Tissue and Oocytes) consortium, encompassing oncofertility research projects at three universities in Brussels: Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) and he is a founding member of the Belgian Fertility Education Initiative (BFEI).

George Church is a Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and MIT. He leads Synthetic Biology at Harvard’s Wyss Institute, where he oversees the directed evolution of molecules, polymers, and whole genomes to create new tools with applications in regenerative medicine and bio-production of chemicals. Professor Church is widely recognized for his innovative contributions to genomic science and his many pioneering contributions to chemistry and biomedicine. In 1984, he developed the first direct genomic sequencing method, which resulted in the first genome sequence (the human pathogen, H. pylori). He later helped initiate the Human Genome Project in 1984 and the Personal Genome Project in 2005. Professor Church invented the broadly applied concepts of molecular multiplexing and tags, homologous recombination methods, and array DNA synthesizers. His innovations have been the basis for many companies including Editas (Gene therapy); Gen9bio (Synthetic DNA); and Veritas Genetics (full human genome sequencing).

Kristin Baldwin is a Professor of Genetics and Development at Columbia University and member of the Columbia Stem Cell Initiative. She is a pioneer in reprogramming and stem cell biology. Her research applies reprogramming to assess the impact of aging on diverse cell types and to engineer new cellular models for neurologic, and cardiovascular disease. Dr. Baldwin’s earlier notable work included being the first to clone a mouse from a neuron and then sequence its genome and producing an entire mouse from a skin cell with iPSCs. Her work has been published in premiere journals (i.e Nature, Cell) and has garnered awards (i.e. Pew Scholar, Kavli Fellow and NIH Pioneer Award). Dr. Baldwin holds a Ph.D. in Immunology from Stanford and performed postdoctoral work in Neurobiology at Columbia University with Dr. Richard Axel. She holds several patents and is a co-founder and board observer of Certego Therapeutics.

Mary Herbert is a Professor of Reproductive Biology at Newcastle University and Scientific Director at Newcastle Fertility Centre. Professor Herbert’s lab advances knowledge of the biology of germ cells and early embryos with the goals of improving understanding of infertility and extending the scope of reproductive technologies to prevent transmission of disease. After seeing how mitochondrial disease was devastating families, Professor Herbert developed a groundbreaking technique to transfer healthy mitochondria to fertilized embryos using nuclear transplantation. This cutting-edge mechanism has the potential to prevent the transmission of fatal mitochondrial disease from mother to child. Professor Herbert’s work has been critical in the development of UK law permitting these new techniques to be offered in clinical treatment. In addition to mitochondrial disease, Mary’s research focuses on the underlying causes of infertility, miscarriage and birth defects in older women. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists and a member of the scientific advisory board for the Association of Clinical Embryologists in the UK.

Dr. Philip Jordan is a professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Research in the Jordan laboratory focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms regulating DNA repair, chromosome segregation and cell cycle progression, processes that are essential for normal organismal development, cellular homeostasis and prevention of diseases. In particular, the Jordan lab studies the aberrant expression and mutation of genes which can result in microcephaly, cognitive and growth retardation, infertility, and predisposition to cancer. His research program uses mouse and human pluripotent stem cells to discover the molecular processes that ensure genome stability during gametogenesis and early development.

An expert in cellular reprogramming and computational biology trained at MIT and Harvard. He is the upcoming Assistant Professor at Duke University Medical school, academic member of the Global Consortium for Female Reproductive Longevity & Equality (GCRLE) and a current Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School, where he is developing state-of-the-art algorithms and high-throughput experimental screens to interrogate germ cell development for Gameto. Pranam holds a PhD from the MIT Media Lab, where he developed robust CRISPR technologies, utilizing both experimental and computational methodologies. Pranam holds patents on novel Cas9 enzymes, ScCas9, Sc++, and iSpyMac.

Dr. Daniel Ordóñez Pérez is a highly experienced Obstetrics and Gynecology specialist with a strong commitment to women’s health. He has been the Head of the Assisted Reproduction Unit at Ruber de Juan Bravo Hospital, now part of the Eugin Group. since 2010. Dr. Ordóñez Pérez earned his medical degree from Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and completed specialized training at Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre. He is known for his contributions to the field, including 18 publications in national and 2 international medical journals, as well as co-authoring 5 chapters in gynecology books. Dr. Ordóñez Pérez is an active educator, having organized and taught gynecological endoscopy courses and courses in Obstetrics support. He is also recognized for his presentations at 40 national and international conferences. Dr. Ordóñez Pérez’s dedication to research and excellence has earned him several awards, including the first prize at the National Congress of Gynecological Endoscopy in 2000. He is a member of the National Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Fertility, demonstrating his commitment to advancing women’s healthcare. Dr. Ordóñez has conducted studies of Fertilo with his patients in Madrid.

Dr. VerMilyea is board certified as both a clinical consultant and a high complexity clinical laboratory director. He is well-known within the IVF research community for leading innovative, collaborative studies to advance the science of fertility care, including award-nominated research involving the use of artificial intelligence in IVF. He is frequently invited to present these collaborative studies’ findings at the largest fertility care conferences in the United States and abroad. Dr. VerMilyea received a bachelor of science degree from Cornell University and his PhD in epigenetics from The University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. He then completed post-doctoral fellowships in the chromatin and gene expression laboratories at the Institute of Biomedical Research in Birmingham, UK. He later was selected as a research fellow for the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, where he completed a second fellowship in the Laboratory of Mammalian Molecular Embryology at the RIKEN Institute in Kobe, Japan. Maintaining his foundation in genetic and molecular research, he chose to return to clinical human IVF and develop a career as an accomplished embryologist, laboratory director, and scientific collaborator. Dr. VerMilyea has performed extensive IVF research in non-invasive artificial intelligence applications, preimplantation genetic testing methodology, embryo culture protocols, selective single embryo transfers, enhanced sperm selection, and the vitrification (freezing) and preservation of eggs, embryos, and reproductive tissue. He has positively influenced the field of reproductive medicine as an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania, honorary research associate at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and honorary lecturer at Auckland University, New Zealand.