Session 59: OoO: Remote Management of Fertility Clinics

Born in Laredo, Texas, Matthew earned his Bachelor of Science degree at Cornell University in Animal Science, Cum Laude with Distinction in Research, and the nickname ‘Tex’.
Tex received his PhD in Epigenetics from The University of Birmingham. He completed his first post-doctoral fellowship in the chromatin and gene expression laboratories at the Institute of Biomedical Research in Birmingham, UK. He completed a second fellowship in the Laboratory of Mammalian Molecular Embryology at the RIKEN institute in Kobe, Japan.
He returned to the United States as an embryologist at Shady Grove Fertility in Maryland. He then became the Director of Assisted Reproductive Technologies and Andrology laboratories at The University of Pennsylvania Fertility Care. From there, Tex moved to Auckland to serve as Scientific Director at Fertility Associates of New Zealand.
After 17 years, Matthew was recruited to return to Texas as the Scientific Director of Texas Fertility Centers. He is currently the Vice President of Scientific Advancement for Ovation Fertility and remains the Laboratory and Operations Director of Ovation’s Austin and San Antonio IVF laboratories. Matthew remains active on multiple professional committees and scientific advisory boards.

Presentation sponsored by XiltriX - Protecting Your Science

Charlie is an experienced technology leader who has been innovating in the fertility space for the last 5 years as the CEO & Co-founder of Salve.

He started out his career at J. Walter Thompson – where he ran advertising campaigns for Nokia, Microsoft and Pfizer.

Wanting to get ‘under the hood’, he then moved closer to technology as a Software Engineer and Commercial Product Manager at RELX Group where he built, launched and scaled complex data analytics solutions for blue chip clients.

Five years ago an idea sparked when, within a few weeks of each other, Charlie spoke with two separate friends. One was a patient going through fertility treatment discussing the challenge in navigating the complex treatment process. The second was with an embryologist, who was discussing a similarly frustrating process but on the clinic side. Charlie quickly realised that a solution could be formed to solve both problems and so Salve was born!

Presentation sponsored by Salve -Be a pioneer in patient experience

Michael Tucker has been a resident of the USA for over 30yrs and has been an embryologist for over 37yrs. He pioneered the first ICSI births in the United States, the US’ first birth resulting from testicular sperm, the world's first birth from frozen donor eggs, and the first pregnancy from immature eggs that were matured after thawing in the IVF lab.
Since 1983, Dr. Tucker has been lab director and embryologist at major fertility centers in London, Hong Kong, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Rockville, Baltimore, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Tampa, New York and even Jackson MS, plus served as a scientific consultant in more than 50 clinics worldwide.
He has functioned in his role as Scientific Director with SGF for over two decades. He is co-author of more than 150 peer-reviewed papers, has written over 80 chapters and course syllabi, and has been co-author/editor of three textbooks on ART and Vitrification.
Dr. Tucker lives with his wife and family in Atlanta, Georgia; is an avid motorcyclist, amateur guitarist, and with his family fosters cats, dogs & humans.


 

DR. MICHELLE PERUGINI  

Dr. Michelle Perugini is an academic and health tech entrepreneur with extensive experience in healthcare and advanced AI technologies. Dr Perugini has a PhD in Medicine and spent over a decade as a stem cell biologist specialising in predictive genetics and translational medicine in oncology. In 2007, Dr Perugini Co-Founded a global AI tech company operating out of Silicon Valley and Adelaide, Australia. That company was called ISD and used AI to predict human behaviour of whole populations of consumers to assist with strategic and social policy planning. ISD was acquired by Ernst and Young {EY) in 2015.

Michelle is now Co-Founder and CEO of Presagen, an AI healthcare company focused on improving women’s healthcare outcomes globally. Presagen is building The Social Network for Healthcare. The Company’s online platform connects a global collaborative network of clinics and their medical data in order to build scalable AI healthcare products. Presagen’s fertility product Life Whisperer is a web-based application that uses AI to assist with embryo selection during the IVF process to improve pregnancy success rates and shorten the time to pregnancy for patients. Life Whisperer is commercially available and being used in IVF labs globally. The Company’s second product Life Whisperer Genetics will also be available soon for non-invasive embryo genetic assessment using AI.

Michelle is also a dedicated advisor to many global start-ups, a member of the Australian Government R&D Incentives Committee, and is a global advocate for AI in healthcare. She has also won many innovation and technology awards including Talent Unleashed, the Pearcey Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2021, and she is the winner of the Australia/NZ Women in AI Healthcare Award this year.

PROFESSOR SIMON FISHEL

Professor Simon Fishel is the Founder and President of the CARE Fertility Group – the UK’s largest independent provider of fertility services. Simon is also Co-Founder and CEO of ProFaM (Protecting Fertility and Menopause), the world first company established to preserve ovarian hormones for potential future use (such as providing physiological HRT -or, naturally postponing menopause!) in addition to preserving fertility. Additionally, he is Chair of the Advisory Board for Genomic Prediction, the first company in the world to develop risk-score screening of embryos for polygenic disease, and also the screening of ANXA5 M2 mutation, a gene haplotype responsible for miscarriage and placenta-mediated pregnancy complications.

He began his research career at the University of Cambridge in 1975 with Bob Edwards, who was responsible with Patrick Steptoe for the birth of the first IVF baby in 1978. During the 1978-1980 he was the first to publish on the metabolic responsiveness of embryos to their environment, and he also published on demonstrating the presence of specific uterine glycoproteins suggesting bidirectional signalling. Simon joined Patrick and Bob at Bourn Hall, world first dedicated IVF clinic, as Deputy Scientific Director when it opened in 1980, where he was part of the “original” clinical team of four undertaking IVF (the other member being John Webster). In 1979 he was appointed a Research Fellow at Churchill College, and in 1980 was awarded the prestigious Beit Memorial Fellowship. In1984 Simon was the first to publish on the secretion of HCG by the human embryo. He has published over 200 scientific papers and three books and, with Alison Campbell, the first atlas of time-lapse images of the human embryo. His pioneering work in the field of IVF has resulted in many honorary awards from countries such as Japan, Austria, Italy, South Africa and the US, amongst others.

In 1992 he founded the world first degree course in IVF and he has advised several international Government committees reviewing policy and legislation on IVF, including advisors to the Vatican. In 1997 he was awarded a Personal Professional Chair in Human Reproduction, is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and in 2009 was honoured by the Liverpool John Moores University with their highest award of ‘University Fellow’ for “outstanding contribution to science and to humanity”. He also holds an honorary Professorial Chair at the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University.

Simon Founded the Rachel Foundation, a charity for research to help children rendered infertile due to medical treatment, and also to help raise awareness for secondary infertility.
Simon’s professional interests span all elements of human reproduction, fertility and embryology, IVF technologies in particular, and menopause.


Standing in for Simon will be Dr. Alison Campbell:
Alison Campbell is based in the UK and has played a key role in establishing and improving IVF laboratories for over 25 years. As Director of Embryology for the CARE Fertility Group, Alison heads up the 13 laboratory teams across the UK and Ireland.

Alison's strategic role involves driving standards, best practice and leading R&D across the sites.

Alison is a member of Alpha Scientists executive board, a section editor of RBM On-line, an associate editor of Human Reproduction, a fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists and a Director of The CARE Fertility Group. Alison was responsible for the first clinical application of time-lapse microscopy in the UK, 10 years ago, and is well published in this exciting area of assisted reproduction.

Alison has a passion for training and development of embryologists and has recently established a state of the art training facility at CARE Fertility, Manchester.