Simon Fishel
Prof. Simon Fishel
Simon Fishel is the Founder and President of the CARE Fertility Group, following 18 years as its CEO. He has worked in the field of Assisted Reproduction Technology/Assisted Conception for over 30 years and was part of the original pioneering IVF team with Steptoe and Edwards that produced the World first IVF ("Test tube") baby. Simon has published over 200 academic papers, four books in the IVF field, established numerous clinics worldwide and was the first to introduce IVF to China in the 1980's as part of a WHO initiative. His research career began at the University of Cambridge, where he worked for several years with Professor Robert Edwards prior to the birth of Louise Brown, in 1978. During this time Dr Fishel was the first to demonstrate that the embryo 'communicates' with its environment; and, later, was the first to publish on the synthesis and secretion of HCG by the human embryo. In 1978 he was appointed a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, became a Cambridge University Lecturer and was awarded the prestigious Beit Memorial Fellowship. In 1980 he became Deputy Scientific Director at the world's first "test tube baby clinic", working with Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe until 1985 when he moved to Nottingham. During the mid to late 1980's Simon was responsible for developing techniques for micromanipulation in ART, leading to the first published birth with sperm microinjection, in 1990; a technology that was the forerunner to what is now the well-established ICSI technique. Professor Fishel is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and an internationally acclaimed IVF scientist; having received many honorary awards from countries such as Japan, Austria, Italy, South Africa and the US, amongst others. In 1992 he founded the World first degree course in IVF and ART, and he has advised several international Government committees reviewing policy and legislation on IVF, including advisors to the Vatican. He was awarded a Personal Professorial Chair in Human Reproduction at the University of Nottingham before establishing the CARE Fertility Group in 1997. More recently Simon has been instrumental in driving the first real time array CGH program in IVF that resulted in the first successful use of egg or embryo chromosome evaluation in 2009, which is now used worldwide, and more recently CAREmaps – the pioneering breakthrough involving time-lapse imaging algorithms. Simon is on the board and reviewer for several international journals, a Patron of numerous organizations, held several advisory roles for the HFEA, and in 2009 was honoured by Liverpool John Moores University with their highest award of 'University Fellow' for "outstanding contribution to science and to humanity".
