{"id":3480,"date":"2014-10-03T13:00:42","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T02:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test-blogs-monash-edu.pantheonsite.io\/rural-health\/?p=3480"},"modified":"2014-10-03T13:00:42","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T02:00:42","slug":"ivf-pioneer-talks-to-year-a-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/2014\/10\/03\/ivf-pioneer-talks-to-year-a-students\/","title":{"rendered":"IVF pioneer talks to Year A students"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Professor

Professor Alan Trounson gave a lecture to Year A students when he visited Churchill in September.<\/p><\/div>\n

Eminent scientist Professor Alan Trounson captivated\u00a0 Year A medical students with his lecture at Churchill on Monday 29 September.<\/p>\n

Professor Trounson, Emeritus Professor Monash University, was a pioneer of human in vitro fertilisation (IVF), introducing fertility drugs for controlling ovulation, embryo freezing techniques, egg and embryo donation methods, initiated embryo biopsy, developing in vitro oocyte maturation methods and the vitrification of eggs and embryos.<\/p>\n

He led the Australian team for the discovery of human embryonic stem cells in the late 1990s.<\/p>\n

He told students it was an interest in farming that started his career. \u201cI wanted to be a farmer,\u201d he said. \u201cI studied wool technology and ended up at Cambridge University (London), working with cattle and horses on reproduction.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was that research in reproduction that brought Professor Trounson back to Australia in 1977 to work alongside Professor Carl Wood in the emerging field of IVF.<\/p>\n

\u201cI essentially translated my research of cattle to see if it worked in humans and it did,\u201d he told students. \u201cThings that work in animals often work in humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Travelling on a \u201ccontorted\u201d career journey saw him working with wild animals in Africa and at the Western Plains Zoo in NSW where he led a successful artificial insemination program for black rhinos. \u201cI have always loved animals,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

This whole experience set the scene for developing human IVF as a technology. \u201cWe were able to grow embryoes in the lab, take samples, diagnose genetic diseases and more. As researchers, these things became useful for humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Professor Trounson, there was a lot happening in Australia before anywhere else in the world. \u201cIt was an exciting time,\u201d he added. \u201cBut there were a lot of negative comments that we were going too fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

His work took another direction when, with colleagues, Professor Trounson eventually founded not-for-profit foundations, low cost IVF and Friends of Low Cost IVF, to enable wider access to assisted reproductive technology and fertility education for all people across the globe. He outlined his work in Africa and Asia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen from Africa and Asia approached me,\u201d he explained. \u201cIf they were unable to have a child, they were blamed and excluded by society, physically and mentally tortured\u2026they often ended up on the streets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eminent scientist Professor Alan Trounson captivated\u00a0 Year A medical students with his lecture at Churchill on Monday 29 September. Professor Trounson, Emeritus Professor Monash University, was a pioneer of human in vitro fertilisation (IVF), introducing fertility drugs for controlling ovulation, embryo freezing techniques, egg and embryo donation methods, initiated embryo biopsy, developing in vitro oocyte […]<\/p>\n Read More...<\/a>","protected":false},"author":656,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3333,2081],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3480"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/656"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3480"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3484,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3480\/revisions\/3484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.monash.edu\/rural-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}