“Preimplantation genetics: at the intersection of diagnostics, biology and controversy.”

Dagan Wells has been actively involved in preimplantation genetic diagnosis and the study of human gametes and embryos for over 25 years. He spent several years at University College London, where he accomplished the first comprehensive chromosome analysis of single cells from human preimplantation embryos, revealing the remarkable incidence of aneuploidy during the earliest stages of human development. Dagan then moved to the United States and joined Reprogenetics, a laboratory specializing in preimplantation genetic testing (PGT). Reprogenetics grew to become the World’s largest provider of preimplantation diagnostic services, with Dagan directing their clinical monogenic PGT programme and also leading their research and development efforts. Dagan later joined the faculty of Yale University Medical School, where he set-up a research laboratory, before returning to the UK and joining the University of Oxford in 2007. While in Oxford, Dagan established a laboratory offering state-of-the-art diagnostic services to IVF clinics, which became the most active facility of this type in the UK, helping numerous NHS and private patients to achieve healthy pregnancies. He is now an Associate Professor based at the Nuffield Department of Women’s & Reproductive Health, with funding from the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). His research group focuses on genetic factors relevant to gametogenesis and early embryo development and has a strong translational emphasis. His work has led to the publication of over 200 peer-review publications and in the last decade has been shortlisted for eighteen major conference prizes (ASRM and ESHRE), winning ten of them. Dagan is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal Society of Biology and the Institute of Biomedical Science. He currently serves on the Boards of several international journals and professional societies