David K. Gardner PhD

Prof. David Gardner did his undergraduate and postgraduate training at the University of York in the UK in the laboratory of Professor Henry Leese. He then spent time as a Fellow at Harvard Medical School with Professor John Biggers, before moving to Monash University in the late 1980’s to work with Professor Alan Trounson. At Monash David worked on methods for the successful culture and diagnosis of human embryos. In 1997 he moved back to the USA where he became the Scientific Director of the Colorado Centre for Reproductive Medicine, established a large research team and was an adjunct Professor at Colorado State University. In 2007 David returned to Australia to take up the position of Chair of Zoology at the University of Melbourne and in 2008 became Head of Department. In 2015 he took a research position in the newly formed School of BioSciences.

David has been a pioneer of human blastocyst culture, embryo diagnosis and vitrification; his work not only resulting in significant improvements in human infertility treatment, but also facilitating the isolation of the world’s first human embryonic stem cells. His current research is focussed on the analysis of gamete, embryo and stem cell function, and how external factors such as diet, the environment and culture conditions affect subsequent fetal development and offspring health. His group continues to work on the development of biomarkers and the optimisation of culture conditions. David has published over 250 scientific papers and chapters, and edited 12 books on embryology and Human IVF.