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Born in Cambridge, UK, he received his B.A. degree in Natural Sciences (Physiology) from the University of Cambridge in 1967, and his Ph.D. in the Marshall Laboratory of Reproduction, University of Cambridge, in 1972 under the  supervision of C.R. “Bunny” Austin, the Charles Darwin Professor of Animal Embryology. During his graduate training, he collaborated with Professor R.G. “Bob” Edwards in demonstrating for the first time the fertilization of human ova in vitro, a discovery that paved the way for the birth of Louise Brown in 1978.
His post-doctoral training (1974-1975) was with Professor Ryuzo Yanagimachi at the University of Hawaii as a Ford Foundation and Population Council Fellow. This was followed by 2 years at the UCLA School of Medicine in Torrance, California working on sperm motility factors, and one year as Lecturer in Animal Physiology at the University of California, Davis. In 1979, he was appointed as Assistant Professor of Veterinary Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Assistant Scientist at the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1984 and Full Professor in 1989.
In 2000, he resigned from UW-Madison to take up an endowed chair (the Freeport-McMoRan Professorship of Reproductive and Conservation Biology) in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of New Orleans, a position with primary emphasis on research and on graduate training. His main focus is on primate embryology and embryonic stem cell research, through collaborations with several U.S. primate centers.
Key accomplishments of Dr. Bavister’s laboratory:
- Developing the first reliable procedures for IVF in monkeys, which are now in use worldwide, and production of the first genetically-documented IVF monkey “Petri” in 1983;
- Providing the first data implicating changes in intracellular pH as regulators of early mammalian embryo development;
- Discovery of the glucose/phosphate inhibition of embryo development in vitro; this was the first mechanistic explanation for the "blocks to development" since 1957. Human clinical IVF pregnancy rates have been increased because of this discovery.
- Provided evidence for a "Crabtree-like" effect (glycolytic inhibition of respiration) in cultured embryos. This metabolic regulatory effect was previously described only in spermatozoa of some species and in certain cancer cell lines in culture.
- Demonstrated that specific energy substrates and amino acids regulate embryo development, which provided the basis for the formulation of sequential culture media.
- Produced the first hamster pups from IVF embryos, an advance due to improved culture medium development.
- Provided the first evidence that timing of embryo development is critically important for viability: faster developing blastocysts produced twice as many fetuses as slower blastocysts. This discovery provides a reliable, non-invasive marker of embryo viability that is now being used to select cleavage stage human IVF embryos for transfer.
- Showed that mitochondrial distribution and/or activity changes during fertilization, and that these changes are perturbed in embryos that have poor or no developmental competence. Disturbance of mitochondrial function may be a key factor accounting for the slower development and (sometimes) loss of viability in cultured embryos. This discovery led to experiments showing that intracellular ion homeostasis (pH, calcium) are easily perturbed in early embryos in vitro, along with altered mitochondrial distribution and metabolism, and with compromised development. Artificially perturbing pHi produces similar developmental and sub cellular changes. This work promises to provide new insights into the relationships between embryos and their culture environment, that will lead to improved culture media formulations.
These mitochondrial relationships are now being studied in stem cells, including effects of prolonged cell culture.
Dr. Bavister has authored or co-authored 165 refereed journal articles, plus 27 book chapters and proceedings of scientific meetings, and he has edited 3 books, all on the topics of gamete biology, in vitro fertilization and embryo development. Since 1982, he has been an invited speaker at 80 national and international workshops, special lectures and symposia in 15 countries, including Gordon Conferences, Serono Symposia, Organon Symposia, and American Fertility Society/ American Society for Reproductive Medicine Post-Graduate courses. He has most frequently been asked to speak on the extrapolation of basic animal experimental data to the improvement of human clinical IVF outcomes.
He has been the principal organizer/chairman for several national and international conferences and workshops, including two Serono Symposia, the International Embryo Transfer Society (IETS), and the Chinese Academy of Sciences/Kunming Institute of Zoology.
He served on the Editorial Boards of the journals Biology of Reproduction; In Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer; Gamete Research/Molecular Reproduction and Development; and Reproduction, Fertility and Development, and is currently again on the Editorial Board of Biology of Reproduction. He has served on grant review panels for the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and on the Board of Directors of the Society for the Study of Reproduction, and the Board of Governors of the International Embryo Transfer Society.
Fifteen students have received the M.S. and/or Ph.D. degrees in his laboratory, and 10 more students have received post-doctoral training. He is currently supervising 2 Ph.D. students.
In recognition of his contributions to the field of embryology, Dr. Bavister was elected vice-President of the International Embryo Transfer Society in 2001, and in 2002 he served as President of this Society.
Web site: http://www.rbl.uno.edu/staff.php
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