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Jacques Cohen, Ph.D., Scientific Director of Assisted Reproduction, leads a team of embryologists, andrologists and biologists in the laboratory aspects of reproductive medicine. He oversees a variety of research projects, including molecular studies related to human gametes, research into structural chromosome abnormalities in gametes and early embryos, development of techniques for egg freezing, and micromanipulation studies aimed at developing tools for clinical evaluation or therapy for oocytes and embryos.
Dr. Cohen has been actively involved in treating infertile couples by
assisted reproductive technology (ART) since 1976. In 1982, after earning a Ph.D. in reproductive physiology from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, he went to England to join the team of Drs. Edwards and Steptoe, who were responsible for the first IVF birth at Bourne Hall Clinic. Dr. Cohen was that clinic’s senior embryologist when it was the largest and most progressive center of its kind in the world.
While there, Dr. Cohen was the first to freeze and successfully thaw the human blastocyst (a five-day-old embryo), and to use IVF for couples diagnosed with male-factor infertility. Considered among a very few of the most experienced human embryologists worldwide, he moved to the United States in 1985.
During a four-year affiliation with Emory University, and while serving as laboratory director of a private clinic in Atlanta, he developed a number of techniques that revolutionized IVF. Together with other scientists, he was first to culture human embryos on a layer of so-called helper cells (co-culture) to promote growth. He also was first to apply micromanipulation techniques, using tools with microscopically small end points to operate on eggs, sperm and embryos. This led to the development and application of several methods that are now routine worldwide. These include intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), which places a sperm inside the outer shell of the egg, and assisted hatching, which promotes pregnancy by initiating the hatching process following fertilization. Both technologies were invented by for patients who failed to become pregnant following IVF, and were perfected after Dr. Cohen became scientific director at Cornell University Medical College in New York City in 1989.
At the Institute since 1995, Dr. Cohen continues as a leader in his field, having published more than 200 scientific papers. He is a frequent lecturer, both nationally and internationally, on his team’s work.
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Laboratory and Research Directors