The Modern Laboratory · People

Training. Christopher Chen studied medicine in Singapore and trained as a specialist in obstetrics and gynaecology in Edinburgh and Glasgow. He also held an associate professorship at the National University of Singapore.

Adelaide. At Flinders University and Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide he led research into infertility. In 1982 he and his colleagues described how they had built an IVF programme inside an existing infertility service. His own biographies record that in 1983 he delivered IVF triplets, among the first anywhere.

Freezing the egg. In April 1986 he reported in The Lancet the first pregnancy from human eggs that had been frozen and thawed. He trimmed the cumulus cells around each egg, added the cryoprotectant dimethyl sulphoxide in one step, cooled slowly, then plunged the eggs into liquid nitrogen. Eight in ten of 40 eggs survived thawing. Most of those that were inseminated fertilised, and a twin pregnancy followed. He was the paper's only author.

Egg freezing then stayed difficult for many years, and the method that later made it reliable was vitrification. But the Adelaide twins showed that a frozen egg could, at least sometimes, become a child.

Later years. He returned to practise in Singapore and founded a centre for reproductive medicine there. He served as world president of the International College of Surgeons and as editor of its journal. In 2009 the University of Queensland awarded him an MD, and in 2012 he endowed a chair in reproductive medicine there, its largest alumni gift at that time.

The IVF Museum · The Modern Laboratory · People
Compiled with AI-assisted research and checked against the original sources. Not yet peer-reviewed. Corrections are warmly welcomed.