2006 Media Releases
Friday, 10 March 2006
Visiting reproductive scientist speaks on: When did I begin?
Leading British reproductive scientist, Professor Martin Johnson – the first graduate student of Bob Edwards, ‘father’ of IVF who achieved the first human in vitro fertilisation and the birth of the first ‘test tube’ baby – will give a public seminar at La Trobe University next Tuesday, 14 March 2006.
The seminar will be held at 3.30 pm at the Institute for Advanced Study on La Trobe University’s main Melbourne campus at Bundoora, (Melways Ref: Map 573, f1).
Professor Johnson is Professor of Reproductive Sciences at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Christ’s College.
Professor Johnson, whose research extends to socio-legal and ethical issues raised by IVF, will examine our current understanding of the biology underlying individual human development and some of the ramifications for other disciplines such as law, ethics, and philosophy.
He will explore genetic and other biological influences on the development of individuals, and present some recent data that illustrate how the environment interacts with genes to shape ‘an individual person’.
A Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the La Trobe University Institute for Advanced Study, Professor Johnson is in Australia working with La Trobe Law Associate Professor, Dr Kerry Petersen.
Dr Petersen is a specialist in medical law and human reproduction law. She is researching legal and ethical issues governing human reproduction with Professor Johnson and Professor Marian Pitts from the La Trobe University Australian Research Centre for Sex, Health and Society.
Professor Johnson is co-author of the standard text on mammalian reproduction ‘Essential Reproduction’ which is now in its 6th edition.
He has been a member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, Chairman of the British Society for Developmental Biology, Head of the Department of Anatomy, Cambridge, and is a non-medical Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, London.
For further information:
For interviews or further information: Professor Johnson, Tel: 03 9479 3468 or 03 9467 9986; Dr Petersen, Tel: 03 4792284; or the seminar convener, Ms Julia Anderson, Tel: 03 9479 3461, Email: j.anderson@latrobe.edu.au