Executive Committee
Roger Gosden, Ph.D., Professor and Director of Reproductive Biology, Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility, Weill Cornell Medical College.
Dr. Gosden received research training in reproductive endocrinology under Robert Edwards who, together with Patrick Steptoe, achieved the first clinical success with human IVF. He was awarded a Ph.D. in 1974 from Cambridge University, England, and a D.Sc. for meritorious research by Edinburgh University, Scotland, in 1989. He was a Population Council fellow at Duke University and a visiting professor at the Universities of Southern California, Naples, Washington, Hong Kong and Sun Yet-Sen (P.R. of China). He was on the faculty of Edinburgh Medical School for 18 years, rising to deputy chairman of Physiology. Appointed in 1994 to the first chair of reproductive biology at Leeds University, he later transferred to Montreal as Scientific Director of Reproductive Biology at McGill University. In 2001, he became Scientific Director and Howard and Georgeanna Jones Professor of Reproductive Medicine at the Jones Institute in Eastern Virginia Medical School. He serves as an editor, consultant to industry and national governments in Europe and North America and is in demand as a speaker at conferences worldwide. He has published seven books and >200 research papers, winning a number of prestigious prizes. Since 2004, he is Professor and Director of Reproductive Biology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, and is married to another Cornell faculty member, Dr Lucinda Veeck Gosden, the embryologist in the original Jones Institute team that pioneered clinical IVF in America. His current research interests are in oocyte development and fertility conservation.
Mark Roberson, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Biomedical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca.
Dr. Roberson received his PhD at the University of Nebraska in 1990 and then completed 5 years of postdoctoral research at the University of Iowa College of Medicine and Oregon Health Sciences University in the area of molecular endocrinology of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis. Dr. Roberson joined the faculty at Cornell University in 1995 and was promoted to Associate Professor with indefinite tenure in 2001. Dr. Roberson's research program is currently supported by two R01 NIH grants as outline below and he serves as co-PI on one additional R01. Dr. Roberson has published 54 peer reviewed journal articles and has been an ad hoc member of the (former) Biochemical Endocrinology Study Section. He is currently on the Editorial Board of Molecular Endocrinology and is an active member of both the Endocrine Society and the Society for the Study of Reproduction. Dr. Roberson has been the Director of Graduate Studies in the Graduate Field of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at Cornell University since 2003. Research in the Roberson lab focuses on the intracellular signal transduction cascades induced by GnRH and the mechanisms of gene activation that result from these signaling pathways. The most recent studies in the Roberson lab make use of a novel pituitary-specific ERK1/ERK2 conditional knock out mouse model. These studies reveal that GnRH-mediated signaling through the ERK pathway is required for normal fertility in female mice but not in males. The lab is currently examining the role of ERK signaling during pituitary organogenesis and endocrine cell lineage specification during development and has recently extended these studies to examine ERK signaling cascades during gametogenesis (the focus of studies in sub-project III of the current proposal). The Roberson lab also examines the molecular mechanisms for placental-specific expression of the subunit genes that make up human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), focusing on the role of the transcription factor Distal-less 3 (Dlx3) on placental trophoblast commitment and placental morphogenesis. Dlx3 appears to be required for expression of one of the subunit of hCG and is responsible for directing mid- and late-stage differentiation programs in the developing mouse placenta. The Dlx3 knock out is characterized as an embryonic lethal due to failure in placental development by day 9.5 during gestation in the mouse. Interestingly, gene profiling studies suggest that several markers for pre-eclampsia are targets for Dlx3 action in the developing mouse placenta. Further, loss of Dlx3 is associated with failed expansion of fetal vasculature within the placental labyrinth. Molecular, biochemical, genetic and novel imaging strategies using two photon excited microscopy are being used to define the role of Dlx3 during placental morphogenesis.
John Schimenti, Ph.D., Professor of Genetics, Departments of Biomedical Sciences and Molecular Biology & Genetics, Director of the Center for Vertebrate Genomics, Cornell University, Ithaca.
Dr. Schimenti received his doctorate in Developmental Biology from the University of Cincinnati Children's Hospital in 1985. He then did a postdoctoral fellowship with Lee Silver at Princeton studying the genetics of male infertility and transmission ratio distortion associated with the mouse t complex. He became an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Genetics at Case Western Reserve Univ. in 1987. There, he continued work on the t complex and developed transgenic models to study genetic recombination in mice. In 1992, he moved to The Jackson Laboratory, where he was a Staff Scientist. His work there concentrated on novel ES-cell based strategies to manipulate the mouse genome, and the isolation of new mutant models of embryonic development, infertility, and cancer. He is a co-investigator in the "Reprogenomics" mutagenesis program along with Drs. John Eppig and MA Handel (Reprogenomics.jax.org). Dr. Schimenti relocated to Cornell University in 2004, where he is a Professor of Genetics, member of two Departments (Biomedical Sciences and Molecular Biology & Genetics), Director of the Center for Vertebrate Genomics, Chair of the Provost's Life Sciences Advisory Committee, Chair of the Mammalian Genomics Focus Group, and Director of Graduate Studies for the graduate Field of Genomics. Dr. Schimenti has served as a permanent member of the Eukaryotic Genetics review panel at NSF, the Mammalian Genetics study section at NIH, the Secretariat of the International Mammalian Genome Society, NIH committees concerning the development of mammalian and non-mammalian genomic resources, ad hoc reviewer for mouse (KOMP) and zebrafish genomics grants, as well as ad hoc reviewer for other study sections (twice for CMIR) and Center grants at NIH. He has published 95 peer reviewed articles. His lab at Cornell continues to focus on the genetics of meiosis and mammalian gametogenesis.
Peter Schlegel, M.D., Professor and Chairman of Urology, Professor of Reproductive Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College; a Staff Scientist at The Population Council, Center for Biomedical Research; and a Visiting Associate Physician at The Rockefeller University Hospital.
He is Urologist-in-Chief and an Attending Urologist at The New York Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Schlegel is an internationally acclaimed expert in the treatment of male infertility, especially the interface of male factor treatment with assisted reproductive techniques. His work has also clarified the importance of genetic studies in the evaluation of men with infertility. He was awarded the 1996 Established Clinician Award by The European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology. Dr. Schlegel was awarded a fellowship by the Royal College of Surgeons in 1992 for collaborative study with urologists in London, which he performed in 1993. He has been listed as an expert in nerve-sparing radical prostatectomy techniques as well as male infertility by Castle Connolly's " Best Doctors" Guide since 1999 as well as other national "Best Doctor" lists. In over 150 published or submitted original manuscripts, as well as numerous book chapters and invited articles, Dr. Schlegel has described the characteristics of men who are candidates for sperm retrieval, designed and described novel techniques for sperm retrieval for use with assisted reproduction, and identified the factors that affect the successful achievement of pregnancy after sperm retrieval. He has also published extensively on microsurgical treatment of infertile men as well as on genetic aspects of infertility. More importantly, the team of scientists, reproductive endocrinologists, nurses and technicians that Dr. Schlegel has worked with at Cornell has achieved one of the highest pregnancy rates in the world for treatment of couples using sperm that were retrieved by Dr. Schlegel. Dr. Schlegel is a co-editor of the Journal of Andrology and currently or has previously served on editorial board of the medical journals, British Journal of Urology-International, Journal of Urology (Investigative Section), Techniques in Urology, Journal of Andrology, and FertiliText. He is currently Co-Editor of the Journal of Andrology. He was the Edwin A. Beer Program award recipient of The New York Academy of Medicine, 1996-98, and received a New Investigator Award from the American Foundation for Urologic Diseases, 1993-95. Dr. Schlegel serves or has served in a leadership role of several national infertility organizations, including as a Council member for the American Society of Andrology, on the Board of Directors, Secretary, and Vice-President of the Society for Male Reproduction and Urology of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, as well as serving as Secretary, Vice President and President of the Society for Study of Male Reproduction of the AUA. He is currently on the Board of Directors of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.