Session 62: The Metrics

Brad Van Voorhis, M.D is Professor and and interim Chair in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. Since 2003, he has directed the IVF program at Iowa which is regarded as one of the best in the world based on published outcomes. His research has focused on improving the safety and efficacy of IVF. He has collaborated with the CDC to mount a national campaign to reduce prematurity and multiple birth following IVF treatment. He, along with an excellent team of physicians and embryologists, have pioneered the use of single embryo transfer in the United States, which is now the standard of care based, in part, on research done at Iowa. , Dr. Van Voorhis has been the president of the Society for Reproductive Endocrinologists (SREI) and president for the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technologies (SART).

Amy Sparks, PhD is Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology of the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa. She completed her undergraduate studies in Animal Science at Michigan State University and her graduate studies in Dairy Science at Virginia Tech. After graduation she “jumped the fence” to human reproduction and has served as the director of the andrology and in vitro fertilization laboratories at the University of Iowa since 1993.
Throughout her career, she has strived to optimize patient outcomes by developing cost-effective, evidence-based best practices with an emphasis on elective single embryo transfer. She has served as President of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART), co-President of the Society of Reproductive Biologists and Technologists, chair of the SART Registry Committee and currently serves on the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s board as a director at large.

Dr. Shapiro is a native of Miami, Florida and a graduate of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine and Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Shapiro received his OB-GYN residency training at the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia and his REI training at the University of Connecticut in Farmington. He joined the staff of Reproductive Biology Associates in Atlanta in 1995 and has served as RBA’s medical director since 2005. In 2006, after Drs. Peter Nagy and Jeremy Chang had shown extraordinary results with egg vitrification in the RBA lab, Dr. Shapiro organized the RBA frozen donor egg bank which later became MyEggBank-North America, currently the USA’s largest egg banking network. Dr. Shapiro has been married for 33 years to Dr. Nadine Becker. They have three grown children who make them very proud and a Havanese dog who is cute but loud.



 

DR. PETER NAGY

Dr. Nagy is the Scientific and Laboratory Director at Reproductive Biology Associates (RBA), in Atlanta, USA (since 2002). He obtained his MD (1986) and his Ob&Gyn specialty degrees (1996) at the Semmelweis Medical University in Budapest. He obtained his PhD at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) in 1997 on development of ICSI procedure. Dr. Nagy has acquired a distinctive knowledge and experience on embryo science, including novel viability assessment methods. He has also investigated the basic and clinical aspects of cryopreservation and, developed with his team a highly efficient, proprietary protocol in 2006 for oocyte vitrification that has contributed to the development of “My Egg Bank”, the first vitrification based and of the largest donor oocyte cryo-bank in North- America.
Dr. Nagy is member of several national and international professional societies, including ASRM, ESHRE, Alpha. He is also board member of the International Society for Fertility Preservation (ISFP) and of the Alliance for Fertility Preservation (AFP) and past Chair of Alpha Scientist in Reproductive Medicine (ALPHA). Dr. Nagy is a reviewer of several medical journals, and currently he is section editor of RBMonline, past Section Editor of Human Reproduction. He has been an invited speaker in several hundreds of meeting/congresses in over 50 countries across the world. Dr. Nagy is author or co-author of over 200 publications, including several dozens of book chapters and five books.

DR. RICHARD H. REINDOLLAR

Richard H. Reindollar M.D. completed his tenure as the CEO/Executive Director of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, December 31, 2020. He is Professor Emeritus of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth where he was Professor and Chair from 2005-2014. He previously served as Director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School and New England Medical Center, Tufts Medical School. He is a past president of the Society for Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, the North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology, the New England Fertility Society, and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine from the conclusion of the 2013 ASRM Annual Meeting until he became the Society’s Executive Director. Dr. Reindollar has been a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and a Board Delegate for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He is board certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, and Medical Genetics. Dr. Reindollar was the principal investigator of two large NIH-funded infertility clinical trials, the FASTT and FORT-T trials.

 

KEITH A. RAY

Keith has been with the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) for 13 years and is currently the Director of Special Projects & Corporate Relations. Much of his work at ASRM has involved various initiatives in simulation for Reproductive Surgery and Embryo Transfer, serving as the ASRM representative to the Council of Medical Specialty Societies Simulation Workgroup. He has served as co-director of the ASRM Embryo Transfer Program since project inception (2015), spanning both the development and program implementation phases. He has developed programs for deployment of Embryo Transfer simulation training to REI fellows, experienced practitioners, and IVF teams in the U.S. and globally.

 

DR. DEAN MORBECK

Dr. Morbeck is the Scientific Director at Fertility Associates New Zealand and Sunfert International Fertility Centre, and is an Honorary Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Monash University as well as an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Auckland. He oversees science in IVF clinics throughout New Zealand and Malaysia that annually perform >4500 fresh cycles. Prior to moving to NZ, Dean was an Associate Professor at the Mayo Clinic, and prior to that he was in private practice in the US for over 10 years. He obtained his PhD from North Carolina State University and his MBA from Augsburg College. His research has focussed on quality in the laboratory – from culture media, protein and oil, to how embryologists grade and decide to use blastocysts.