SOCIETY FOR REPRODUCTION - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Member of the Finance Committee
Job Titles:
- SYNOPSIS of CAREER / RESEARCH INTERESTS
After obtaining my general honors BSc in Chemistry and Botany I held posts in industry and teaching in England.
I moved to the University of Illinois in 1960 where I obtained my PhD in Reproductive Physiology with AV Nalbandov as my supervisor. I then remained on the faculty at Illinois for several years. In 1971 I moved to the Department of Steroid Biochemistry in the University of Glasgow based in Glasgow Royal Infirmary from which I retired in 1998.
It is with great sadness we report the death of Dr Harry Charlton FMedSci FRS, Emeritus Reader in Neuroendocrinology at the Department of Human Anatomy and Genetics and Emeritus Fellow of Linacre College, University of Oxford on 5th August 2023 at the age of 84. Harry was a strong supporter of the Society for the Study of Fertility (the forerunner of the SRF), serving on the SRF Committee and organising SSF conferences in Keble College Oxford. He gave the Walpole lecture in 1983 and was awarded the Society's Marshall Medal in 2003.Harry was born Henry Marshall Charlton on 10 March 1939 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, which explains his ready ability to switch to an authentic "geordie" accent on demand.
He studied Zoology at Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, initially on a scholarship as an undergraduate student and then continued to graduate study and a lectureship in the Department of Anatomy, Oxford under Professor Geoffrey Harris.Harry was an outstanding experimental endocrinologist. His early work focussed on the environmental and neuroendocrine control of LH secretion from the anterior pituitary in voles but it was the serendipitous discovery by Bruce Cattanach at Harwell of a mouse mutant in which exhibited extreme hypogonadism that really sparked Harry's research. This hypogonadal (hpg) mutant mouse provided Harry with the ideal tool to investigate the hypothalamic control of the pituitary. Harry showed that hpg mice have extremely low levels of pituitary gonadotrophins and lacked functional GnRH. Episodic, not continuous, treatment with exogenous GnRH restored pituitary and gonadal function. He went on to use transplanted hypothalamic tissues to investigate the biology of the GnRH neurones. This work showed that the brain is not an absolutely privileged site, that CNS tissues express class I MHC molecules and that the site of neural tissue transplantation is important in the immunological response.
He later investigated the immunological consequences of injecting viral vectors into the brain in the context of gene therapy. His outstanding scientific achievements were recognised when he was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1994. Harry's natural excitement for scientific exploration was infectious and he was an excellent and enthusiastic teacher. Many years of students in tutorials, lectures and the dissecting room benefited from the clarity of his mind and his passion for understanding science.
He also had a wonderful sense of humour: Harry had booked a table for a yearly group lunch - on arrival he was asked what name the booking was in - with a straight face he replied "Mr H.P. Gonad".Harry also loved the simple life. One of his early dreams was to grow potatoes and run a market garden on the Isle of Mull where he spent many years on holiday. Other loves included walking in the Lake District and playing Real Tennis at Merton College. While he was a student at Oxford, Harry met his wife Margaret, then a medical student, in the Radcliffe Science Library. Margaret sadly passed away in October 2019 after a devoted 55-year marriage. They are survived by their two children, Andrew and Jennie, and three Grandchildren, Luke, Isobel and Inka.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Finance Committee
Roger's academic education began at the University of Bristol where he studied Veterinary Medicine. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to the University of Wisconsin, where he graduated with a Masters in Genetics. After returning to the UK, Roger went on to gain his PhD under the supervision of Professor Thaddeus Mann at the University of Cambridge. After graduating in 1958 Roger continued his work in Cambridge as a Lecturer then Reader, and as a member of the Unit of Reproductive Physiology and Biochemistry. For his research there, he was awarded a Doctor of Science in 1969.
Roger's research spanned 60 years and an incredible breadth of topics, from elephants to AIDS, from marsupials to mules and from condoms to camels, including the first camel-llama hybrid, Rama the Cama. Roger was the first person to isolate and measure progesterone and published this research in his first paper in Nature in 1956. He also initiated work on embryonic diapause in badgers and roe deer, and supervised projects on horse and elephant reproduction.
Roger left Monash University in 1995, but instead of retiring, took up a new position as Wexler Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne where he continued to share his passion for teaching and learning. Roger could often be found discussing news ideas and inspiring staff and students alike. He initiated a "Teach the Teacher" program for final year medical students to lecture to final year education students on puberty, contraception and abortion.
Roger took himself and his family on many exciting adventures. He spent 6 months in Uganda, taking Mary and young family along. During this time he worked on elephants. He subsequently visited various parts of Africa on many occasions. He went to Thailand frequently and always brought back ties…so his daughter thought it was called Tie-land! With his Australian family, he followed in Darwin's footsteps to the Galapagos Islands, and each night he read the description of the island to be visited from Charles Darwin's book ‘Voyage of the Beagle'. He and his family travelled widely both nationally and internationally.
It is with great sadness that the society announces the death of one of its former members, Professor Sir Ian Wilmut. Ian was joint recipient of 2008 Shaw Prize with Professors Keith Campbell and Shinya Yamanaka, and he delivered both the Hammond Lecture (1998) and Parkes Lecture (2002) to the society. Ian had in recent years been suffering from Parkinson's disease and he passed away on Sunday 10 th September 2023 at the age of 79. Ian of course is best remembered for leading the programme of research at the Roslin Institute during the 1990s that led to the birth of ‘Dolly the sheep', the first animal to be cloned from an adult (somatic) cell. This has frequently been heralded as one of the great scientific achievements of the 20 th century, the legacy of which continues to this day particularly in the field of stem cell research and regenerative medicine. However, Ian's interests went further than that, and his legacy is punctuated by numerous significant achievements spanning the last half-century, as summarised below.
Ian was born near Stratford-upon-Avon in 1944 before moving with his family to Scarborough in Yorkshire. It was at school there that he developed his interest in biology, and weekend work on local farms in Yorkshire inspired him to initially study Agriculture at the University of Nottingham; Ian would later switch to studying Animal Science at the Sutton Bonington Campus. A summer placement in the lab of Professor Chris Polge at the University of Cambridge in 1966 led him to undertake doctoral studies with Chris on the cryopreservation of boar semen which he defended in 1971. Ian then embarked on postdoctoral studies at Cambridge where he developed techniques for the successful cryopreservation of mice and cattle embryos. This led to the birth of ‘Frostie' in 1973, the world's first calf derived from a frozen-thawed embryo (an accomplishment which preceded the birth of the first human from a frozen embryo by more than a decade).
Later in 1973, Ian accepted a position at the Animal Breeding Research Organisation (ABRO) in Edinburgh (subsequently to become known as the Roslin Institute), where a major component of his early research was directed towards understanding the cause of embryonic loss during pregnancy in sheep and pigs; work undertaken in collaboration with David Sales and Cheryl Ashworth. These studies identified the importance of bidirectional communication between the embryo and uterine environment and helped inspire others to explore the importance of the uterine histotroph and its hormonal regulation.
It was around this time, during the mid-1980s, that ABRO embarked on a programme of work to create genetically modified livestock; a programme complementary to the institutes primary remit which concerned genetic improvement in farm animals. One goal was to create transgenic livestock capable of secreting human proteins in milk that, upon extraction, would be suitable for therapeutic use. The technology required to achieve this goal revolved around manipulating gametes and pre-elongation embryos, skills for which Ian and his team were ideally suited. Injection of DNA into the pronuclei of single-cell zygotes was the method of choice at that time, and it ultimately led to the birth of ‘Tracy' in 1990; a ewe capable of secreting large quantities of the human enzyme alpha-1 antitrypsin, which can be used in the treatment of emphysema and cystic fibrosis.
Elsewhere at that time alternative approaches were being developed which potentially offered a more effective means of introducing genetic change in animals. Martin Evans and Matthew Kauffman had previously (1981) isolated stem cells from mouse blastocysts. As Evans and others were to later demonstrate, these cells could more readily be modified genetically and, following microinjection into blastocysts, be used to create chimeric ‘knockout' mice. Also, by the late 1980s, Steen Willadsen had generated the first lambs and calves by nuclear transfer from embryonic cells. Consequently, Ian redirected his programme of research at Roslin towards the derivation of embryonic stem (ES) cells with the aim of introducing genetic change in farm animals following nuclear transfer.
As it turned out, deriving ES cells in farm animals at that time would prove elusive. Consequently, Ian's team assessed other cell types and introduced technical refinements to the procedure of nuclear transfer itself; much of this work was undertaken by Lawernce Smith. There was a lot of discussion regarding cell-cycle stage and synchrony between donor and recipient cells, but progress was slow. The appointment of Keith Campbell as a post-doctoral fellow in Ian's lab was the turning point in the team's endeavours. Inducing quiescence in donor cells was to prove key to the group's success. Subsequent nuclear transfer, undertaken by Bill Ritchie, using synchronised ‘embryonic-like' cells generated by Jim McWhir, resulted in the first live offspring (i.e., Megan and Morag) from partially differentiated cells in 1995. The immediate follow-up experiment utilised more differentiated cells, including a cell line derived by Angelika Schnieke from the mammary gland of a six-year-old Finn Dorset ewe. Dolly was born subsequently in July 1996…… and the world was never quite the same again!
The significance of Dolly, of course, was that she demonstrated the genomic equivalence of totipotent embryonic and fully differentiated somatic cells. In so doing, the Dolly study overturned existing dogmas and inspired Shinya Yamanaka and others to develop more direct in vitro approaches for the induction of pluripotency in somatic cells; a step-change in the field of regenerative medicine. Indeed, it was in the field of regenerative medicine that Ian latterly focussed his efforts. He relocated to the University of Edinburgh in 2005 where he became Founding Director of the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine in 2006.
Finally, from a personal perspective, I look back fondly on a 10-year period of collaboration (between 1993 and 2003) with Ian and others at Roslin, including Lorraine Young, which investigated a series of developmental problems that arose following the use of advanced reproductive technologies in mammals. It is testament to ethical manner by which Ian approached his work that he devoted as much time and energy to that project as he did to all the work and media attention that surrounded cloning during that period.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Finance Committee