The Modern Laboratory · People

In Renee Reijo Pera's laboratory. Connie C. Wong is a developmental biologist who worked with Renee Reijo Pera, first at the University of California, San Francisco and then at Stanford University. In 2008 she was a co-author of studies on how stem cells can be reprogrammed and on the role of the gene Oct4 as an embryo takes over control from the egg's stored instructions.

Timing tells a story. As a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford's Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Wong was first author of a 2010 paper in Nature Biotechnology, sharing first authorship with Kevin Loewke. The team filmed a large set of embryos donated after IVF and compared what the films showed with the activity of genes inside the embryos. Three simple timings, all measured by day 2 and before the embryo's own genes switch on, predicted which embryos would reach the blastocyst stage with more than 93 per cent sensitivity and specificity. Single-cell studies showed that each cell of an embryo seemed to follow its own course, some moving on while others stopped.

From the laboratory to the clinic. Wong is the first named inventor, with Loewke, Thomas Baer, Reijo Pera and Barry Behr, on a Stanford University patent for imaging and evaluating embryos, eggs and stem cells, with a priority date of August 2009. The idea that much of an embryo's future is already written in its first few divisions has shaped embryo research ever since.

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 Not yet peer-reviewed.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.