SPEAKERS
INTERNATIONAL KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Dr Pietro Bortoletto
Reproductive Endocrinologist and Director of Reproductive Surgery
Boston IVF
United States of America
Dr. Pietro Bortoletto is a Reproductive Endocrinologist and Director of Reproductive Surgery at Boston IVF. He specializes in all aspects of infertility care with a special interest in diminished ovarian reserve, recurrent pregnancy loss & implantation failure, Müllerian anomalies, fibroids, endometriosis, and Asherman’s syndrome. Dr. Bortoletto was born in São Paulo, Brasil, and raised in Miami, Florida, by Brazilian & Italian parents. He is fluent in both Portuguese and Spanish. He attended the University of Miami for college and then moved to Chicago, Illinois, to attend the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. After medical school, Dr. Bortoletto moved to Boston and completed Ob/Gyn residency at the Brigham & Women's Hospital/Massachusetts General Hospital Integrated Residency Program. He then completed a Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility fellowship at the Ronald O. Perelman & Claudia Cohen Center for Reproductive Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. In addition to the fellowship, Dr. Bortoletto completed a Master's in Clinical & Translational Investigation at the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences. Dr. Bortoletto currently serves as the Interactive Associate in Chief for Fertility & Sterility and Media Editor for F&S Reports. His research interest center around making fertility treatment safer, improving the patient experience, and better understanding how to make fertility care more effective. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed papers as well as multiple reviews and book chapters.
LOCAL SPEAKERS
Dr Briony Cutts
Haematological Registrar & Consultant
Royal Women's Hospital Melbourne
Melbourne, VIC
Briony is an obstetric medicine physician and haematologist. She achieved her fellowship as a physician and pathologist in 2012. In 2011 she received the Haematology Society of Australasias Young Investigator Award which enabled her to work with international experts in her areas of interest (antiphospholipid syndrome and venous thrombosis in pregnancy) at Guys and St Thomas Hospital in London.
Dr Alison Gee
Gynaecologist
Head of Department, Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility
Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Sydney
Sydney, NSW
Dr Alison Gee is a gynaecologist and certified subspecialist in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility (CREI) and is Head of Department, Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Sydney. She is graduate of the University of Sydney and holds a Master’s degree in Reproductive Health and Human Genetics. Dr Gee is the president elect for the Australian and New Zealand Society for Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Specialists and has previously held Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Obstetrics & Gynaecology (RANZCOG) Subspecialty Committee positions within the Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility sub-specialty. Dr Gee is currently an Examiner for candidates seeking CREI qualification. Dr Gee maintains an extensive private infertility practice in Sydney’s CBD, providing individualised care for infertility and reproductive disorders, including male factor infertility, miscarriage management and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD).
Dr Gee’s research areas include birth outcomes associated with IVF and PGD. She has presented at Regional and National Conferences and authored peer reviewed publications.
Dr Robert Gilchrist
NHMRC Investigator Fellow
Research Lead, Discipline of Women’s Health
University of New South Wales
Sydney, NSW
Professor Robert Gilchrist is a research scientist and a NHMRC Investigator Fellow. He is Research Lead of the Discipline of Women’s Heath UNSW. He is or has been a Scientific Advisory Board member and/or consultant to; City Fertility CHA Global, IVF Australia, CooperSurgical, Repromed, Fertility SA, Cook Medical, and the NZ Ministry of Health. Professor Gilchrist is a reproductive biologist whose research encompasses basic and applied aspects of ovarian folliculogenesis, oocyte maturation and preimplantation embryo development. He conducts discovery research on oocyte-somatic cell interactions as a determinant of subsequent embryonic development. Dr Gilchrist also studies new biomarkers of oocyte quality. In addition, he leads a translation research program with the objectives of improving oocyte in vitro maturation (IVM) procedures for treatment of infertility and fertility preservation in women/girls with cancer. One of his IVM innovations is now in clinical practice. He has published 154 peer-reviewed papers including 30 reviews/chapters. He currently has an H-index of 57 with >9,000 citations.
Professor Louise Hull
Professor
Adelaide Medical School
Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences
Adelaide, SA
Professor M. Louise Hull leads the Endometriosis Group and the Fertility and Conception Theme at the Robinson Research Institute and is the Deputy Head of Department, University of Adelaide. Her group specialises in the applications of digital technology to health promotion and delivery for people with endometriosis, microRNA technology, Genomics, reproductive immunology and novel mouse methods. Professor Hull publishes widely, presents at international conferences, supervises PhD students and teaches reproductive medicine to medical students, registrars and fellows. She has received numerous grants, fellowships and awards. Louise sits on ASPIRE’s Scientific Advisory Committee and is ASPIRE’s Australian country representative. She is an international ambassador for the World Endometriosis Society, the President of ANZCREI, the chair of the AGES grant committee and was an Associate Editor for Human Reproduction. Professor Hull is the owner and Medical Director of the Embrace Fertility Clinic in Adelaide. Dr Hull also sees reproductive medicine patients at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Adelaide.
Associate Professor Gavin Sacks
Conjoint Associate Professor, University of New South Wales
Clinical Director, IVF Australia
Sydney, NSW
Assoc Prof Gavin Sacks is one of Australia’s leading fertility specialists, with a unique research and clinical background in fertility care. He studied medicine at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, completing a PhD on pregnancy implantation. Gavin completed his subspecialist training in reproductive medicine at the Hammersmith Hospital in London, and moved to Sydney in 2005. He is now Clinical Director for IVFAustralia’s Sydney Eastern Suburbs. Gavin’s main research interest is in ‘unexplained’ infertility. His work has resulted in the introduction of natural killer cell testing in Australia, and his pioneering treatment for this has become widely known as the “Bondi Protocol”. He is Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales, and Associate Editor for Human Reproduction Update. Gavin is currently working on a book for a general audience about reproduction. The book is called “Sex and the art of reproduction” and is an attempt to place IVF in the scale of evolutionary change.
Associate Professor Kate Stern
Associate Professor
Obstetrics and Gynaecology
University of Melbourne, Royal Women’s Hospital
Melbourne, VIC
Kate Stern is Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Melbourne, Royal Women’s Hospital. Kate is the Head of Reproductive Services and Head of the Endocrine and Metabolic Service at the Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne and Clinical Director and Head of Clinical Research at Melbourne IVF. She co-chairs the COSA Fertility Preservation Guidance Committee. Kate is a fertility specialist, gynaecologist and reproductive endocrinologist and her special interest is in medical fertility preservation. Kate has also been appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to gynaecology, reproductive medicine and fertility research.
Dr Lindsay Wu
NHMRC Senior Research Fellow
UNSW Sydney
Sydney, NSW
Lindsay Wu is an American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) / Hevolution Investigator, leading the Laboratory for Ageing Research at UNSW where his lab studies the molecular mechanisms that cause biological ageing, with a focus on declining female reproduction with age. A key mechanistic interest for the lab is the role of altered metabolism, including the redox cofactor nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+). His group recently showed that declining levels of this cofactor are a reversible cause of reproductive ageing in mice, and this work is currently undergoing clinical and commercial translation.
- Further Speaking Faculty details will be provided shortly
