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Editorial board

Editor-in-Chief

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Brian Dale - Centre for Assisted Fertilization, Italy

Brian Dale is a reproductive scientist with an interest in fertilization in a wide range of animals from invertebrates to the human. He received his D.Sc., from the University of Manchester in 1990 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and the Royal College of Pathology, London. A membrane biophysicist by training, Brian presently leads research projects at the Centre for Assisted Fertilization in Naples on various aspects of human fertilization. He is author of over 140 research articles and 8 books spanning comparative animal fertilization to human IVF.

Editors

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Hitoshi Sawada - Nagoya University, Japan

Hitoshi Sawada is a Professor of Kinjo Gakuin University (Nagoya, Japan) and Professor Emeritus of Nagoya University (Japan). He received his Ph.D. from Hokkaido University in 1982. He is focusing on the molecular mechanisms of fertilization in marine invertebrates, including ascidians and sea urchins. In particular, he is interested in sperm proteases involved in fertilization, and also in the self-sterility mechanisms in hermaphroditic ascidians. He has organized four international meetings in the field of reproductive biology and edited four books. He published more than 110 papers mainly about the fertilization mechanisms of ascidians. He is one of the leading scientists in reproductive biology and a recipient of Japanese Zoological Society Award in 2014. 

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Jonathan Van Blerkom - University of Colorado Boulder, USA

Jonathan Van Blerkom is a Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder and Director of the IVF Laboratory at Colorado Reproductive Endocrinology in Denver. He has been engaged in research focused on mammalian reproduction and early development and has published widely in the areas of the ovary, oogenesis, fertilization and preimplantation embryogenesis. His recent focus has been on the regulation of the functional organization of the oocyte plasma membrane at the molecular level and the role of mitochondrial bioenergetics in the establishment of developmental competence.

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Antony Galione - University of Oxford, UK

Antony Galione was elected to the Statutory Professorship of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford and was Head of the Department of Pharmacology from 2006-2015.

He received the 2001 Novartis Prize of the British Pharmacological Society for his scientific contributions to pharmacology of calcium signalling. He was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2010 for his contributions to the advancement of medical science, and in 2016 as a Fellow of The Royal Society for his work on calcium.

Antony Galione was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and received a BA in Natural Sciences (pharmacology part 2) in 1985 and his PhD (zoology) in 1989, having worked on the role of calcium oscillations in cell activation in Sir Michael Berridge's laboratory. 

His work, often initially in sea urchin eggs, has helped discover new calcium signalling pathways.  He has contributed to the establishment of the concept of multiple calcium mobilizing messengers which link cell surface stimuli to release of internal calcium stores, and identified their target channels and organelles. This has enhanced our understanding of how calcium as a ubiquitous cellular regulator may control a myriad of cellular processes with precision.

Editorial Board

Dr Arav Editorial Board Profile

Amir Arav Fertile Safe LTD, Israel

Dr. Arav has received his bachelor's degree (B.Sc) in Animal Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M) degree from the University of Bologna, Italy. His PhD degree in neuroscience physiology and biomedical engineering was a combined project of the University of Bologna and the University of California at Berkeley. His post doctorate was done at the Center for Bio-stabilization, University of California at Davis. Dr. Arav is a leading scientist in the field of cryobiology and reproduction with over 150 related publications and 300 patents.

Alberto Darszon

Alberto Darszon  Universidad Nacional Autonoma, Mexico

Dr. Alberto Darszon, a Full Professor at the Instituto de Biotecnología of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Méxco, is part of the consortium of sperm physiology in the Department of Developmental Genetics and Molecular Physiology. The consortium combines strategies of biochemistry, cell physiology, electrophysiology and advanced fluorescence imaging, to understand the regulation of ionic sperm permeability. Ionic channels, membrane proteins that efficiently transport ions, are importantly involved in the motility, maturation and induction of an exocytotic process called the acrosomal reaction that prepares the sperm to fuse with the egg and fertilize it. These processes and the participation of the ion sperm channels and transporters in them, is very important in the generation of a new individual.

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Joaquin Gadea Mateos  - Universidad de Murcia, Spain

Joaquín Gadea is Professor in Physiology at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at University of Murcia (Spain). He is a Doctor Veterinary Medicine, with a PhD in Animal Reproduction and European Diplomate in Animal Reproduction. His research activity has been focused on the field of reproduction biology in domestic animals and humans.

His research interests include sperm function and its relationship with the fertilizing capacity, sperm freezing and especially the alteration of the antioxidant system; and finally, the generation of edited gene animals that serve as experimental models of human diseases.

Kazuo Inaba

Kazuo Inaba Shimoda Marine Research Center, University of Tsukuba, Japan

Kazuo Inaba is a Professor at Shimoda Marine Research Center, University of Tsukuba, Japan. His research interests are the mechanism of sperm motility, and more widely the structure, function and evolution of cilia and flagella. His research targets cover a broad range of organisms, including marine invertebrates, fish, algae and other unicellular eukaryotes.

Michael Klymkowsky Editorial Board Profile

Michael Klymkowsky - University of Colorado Boulder, USA

Michael Klymkowsky is a Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has been focus on studying cytoskeletal and signaling systems, primarily in the context of early development in the clawed frog Xenopus.  More recently he has been engaged in projects focussed on now core concepts in biology and supporting disciplines can be identified and effectively presented to students. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Yves Menezo

Yves Menezo Laboratoire Clément, France

Professor Yves Menezo started his research in farm animal reproduction at INRA (National institute of agronomy research). He obtained his Ph D in 1971 and his Dr Sci in 1979 from the university of Lyon (France). He is a biochemist, specialist in intermediate metabolism in gametes and preimplantation embryo. He was appointed Doctor of Research in 1983, nominated as associate professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at the LSU in Baton Rouge. In 1990 he moved as adj director of the Mérieux foundation in Lyon in charge of the ART department. He is currently an international scientific adviser based in the CLEMENT laboratory in Paris and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. His current interest is focused in the regulations of Methylation/epigenetic in early human embryo. He has authored more than 300 scientific publications and book chapters.

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Toshiyuki Mori - Osaka University, Japan

Toshiyuki Mori is an assistant professor of Department of Molecular Protozoology, Research Center for Infectious Disease Control, Osaka University. His research interest is elucidating molecular mechanism of gamete fusion. Since he started his research, he has been interested in sexual reproduction of flowering plants. Indeed, he has succeeded in identification of several molecular factors controlling fusion of male and female gametes. Among his findings, a male gametic fertilization protein, designated GCS1 (GENERATIVE CELL SPECIFIC 1), has been known as a vital gamete fusion factor conserved in land plants, algae, unicellular protists and invertebrates. Now, he is trying to elucidate GCS1-based gamete fusion system of malaria parasites, seeking for new malaria-attacking targets.

William Ombelet Editorial Board Profile

Willem Ombelet - European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, Belgium

Willem Ombelet started his career researching infertility and IVF in 1984 in Pretoria, South Africa. In 1998, he obtained his PhD degree at the University of Leuven. From 2001 until 2004 he was the President of the Belgian Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. He was involved in 190 international peer-reviewed articles. Dr Ombelet is the founder of the Genk Institute for Fertility Technology and the Walking Egg non-profit organization. He is the editor-in-Chief of the international scientific journal “Facts, Views & Vision in ObGyn”. He was the coordinator of the ESHRE Special Interest Groups “Andrology” and Global and Sociocultural aspects of infertility”. Actually he is the chair of the ESHRE Special Interest Groups.

Catherine Racowsky Editorial Board Profile 2

Catherine Racowsky - Harvard Medical School, USA

Dr. Catherine Racowsky is Professor Emerita of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Harvard Medical School, and was director of the IVF laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for over 20 years. She is currently a University Consultant in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine at the Foch Hospital, Suresnes, France. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Zoology at the University of Oxford, her Ph.D. in Reproductive Physiology from the University of Cambridge and undertook her post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Racowsky is a Past President of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM). Her major research interests include investigating maternal and environmental factors affecting oocyte quality, studying the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying oocyte maturation and expanding methodologies for assessing human embryo developmental competency.  

Sallam Hassan Editorial Board Profile

Hassan Sallam - University of Alexandria, Egypt

Hassan Sallam is the Professor Emeritus at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the University Alexandria Egypt. He is a founding member of the IVF units at King’s College Hospital London and St Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital at Columbia University alongside the Alexandria Fertility and IVF Centre. Hassan Sallam’s special interest and experiences are evidence-based medicine in the area of infertility management and assisted reproduction.

Luigia Santella

Luigia Santella  Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Italy

Luigia Santella is a Research Director at the Department of Research Infrastructures for Marine Biological Resources, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Napoli, Italy. She has widely published in the areas of maturation and fertilization using starfish oocytes as animal models. Her extended work on sea urchin eggs has initially suggested a crucial role in the structural and dynamical changes of the actin cytoskeleton of the egg cortex in regulating the fertilization response. She is a member of the Academia Europaea.

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Riccardo Talevi Naples University Federico II, Italy

Riccardo Talevi Ph.D. is a Professor of Biology of Reproduction and director of postgraduate course in Biology and Technology of Assisted Reproduction at Naples University Federico II. In the last years, his research activity focused on the mechanisms involved in sperm selection inside the female reproductive tract and the enhancement of human oocyte and ovarian tissue cryopreservation. He presently leads research projects on innovative culture systems for in vitro folliculogenesis.

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Gary M. Wessel - Brown University, USA

Gary Wessel is a Professor of Biology at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA and a Senior Scientist of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole Massachusetts, USA. His major research interests are in fertilization, formation of primordial germ cells in embryos, and in gonad function. He uses a variety of research organisms for this purpose, including sea urchins, sea stars, and mice. 

Martin Wilding Editorial Board Profile

Martin WildingCreate Fertility, UK

Martin Wilding graduated from Imperial College London and completed his Ph.D. at University College London on mechanisms of cell cycle control in sea urchins. He then moved to Naples, Italy to work with Prof Brian Dale. Originally working in research on mechanisms of fertilisation in ascidians, the field of human reproduction quickly took root in his field of interest.  Martin Wilding worked as an embryologist and researcher in Italy for a total of 17 years with Prof Dale, publishing over 50 articles and several book chapters. In 2013 Martin Wilding returned to the UK to work at Create fertility where he has deepened his interest in human fertilisation and preimplantation embryo development. He is currently manager and responsible person for the London laboratories.

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Mingtao Zhao Nationwide Children’s Hospital/ The Ohio State University College of Medicine, USA

Mingtao Zhao, DVM, PhD, is a Principal Investigator in the Center for Cardiovascular Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. He is an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) in the Department of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. He received his Ph.D. degree in reproductive physiology with Dr. Randall Prather at the University of Missouri, Columbia, followed by a postdoc fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California, USA. His research areas include early embryonic development, pluripotent stem cells, somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), directed differentiation, and epigenomics. He has used the cutting-edge genome-sequencing technologies (RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, and Methyl-seq) to probe the nuclear reprogramming during early embryonic development and cellular differentiation.

Editorial Office

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