Fertility experts

Professor Lord Robert Winston

Robert Winston is emeritus professor of fertility studies at Imperial College and runs a research programme at the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology. He's also chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University.

His research led to the development of gynaecological microsurgery in the 1970s and various improvements in reproductive medicine, particularly in the field of endocrinology and in vitro fertilisation (IVF). His work on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis enabled families carrying gene defects to have children free of fatal illnesses.

He's a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, an honorary fellow of Queen Mary College, and holds honorary fellowships of the Institute of Biology and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He has been awarded honorary doctorates at 13 universities.

His activities in the House of Lords include speaking regularly on education, science, medicine and the arts. He was chairman of the Lords select committee on science and technology from 1999 to 2002. He's a board member and vice-chairman of the parliamentary office of science and technology.

Mr Hossam Abdalla

Mr Abdalla has been clinical director of the Lister Fertility Clinic at the Lister Hospital, London, since 1988. Under his direction, the unit has grown into one of the largest fertility centres in the UK. One aspect of his research resulted in the birth of Britain's first baby conceived from a donated embryo, which had been frozen, thawed and transferred to the fallopian tubes using zygote intrafallopian transfer (ZIFT). Mr Abdalla is also a highly experienced gynaecological laparoscopic surgeon.

Mr Abdalla is a member of the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority (HFEA) and was previously a member of the executive committee of the British Fertility Society. He has lectured nationally and internationally, and regularly teaches postgraduate students.

Professor Peter Braude

Professor Braude is head of the department of women's health, part of the division of reproduction and endocrinology at King's College London. He directs the Centre for Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals, the most active and successful of the HFEA-licensed programmes in the UK.

He has published widely on emerging techniques, including stem cell research. He was a member of the HFEA from 1999 to 2004, and is chairman of the scientific advisory committee of the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists (RCOG).

Dr Simon Fishel

Dr Fishel is managing director of the CARE Fertility Group, Nottingham. He has worked in the field of assisted conception for almost 30 years and has published more than 200 academic papers and three books in the IVF field, and helped establish numerous clinics worldwide.

His research career began at the University of Cambridge, where he worked for several years with Professor Robert Edwards before the birth of the world's first test tube baby, Louise Brown, in 1978.

In 1980, he became deputy scientific director at the world's first 'test tube baby clinic', working with the pioneers Dr Edwards and Dr Patrick Steptoe.

In addition to being managing director of CARE Fertility, he's an inspector for the HFEA, an advisor to Infertility Network UK and president of ACeBabes.

Professor Susan Golombok

Professor Golombok is professor of family research and director of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge. She specialises in studies of parenting and children's psychological development in families with children conceived by assisted reproduction, including IVF, donor insemination, egg donation and surrogacy.

Professor William Ledger

Professor Ledger is head of the Centre for Reproductive Medicine and Fertility at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, and professor of obstetrics and gynaecology. He's an RCOG-accredited subspecialist in reproductive medicine and has special interests in minimal access surgery, endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome.

He has published widely on many aspects of the management of infertility and was a member of the RCOG working party that compiled guidelines on the management of infertility.

Dr Gillian Lockwood

Dr Lockwood is medical director and research clinician at Midland Fertility Services, West Midlands. She read philosophy, politics and economics at the University of Oxford and worked as a government statistician before changing careers to medicine, qualifying in 1986. She has specialised in reproductive medicine since 1990.

Dr Lockwood is member of the RCOG ethics committee, a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Ethics and Communication in Health Care Practice (Ethox) and a member of the parliamentary select committee on science and technology, helping to shape legislation for the future of fertility treatment in the UK.

She is also a member of the British Fertility Society.