About Tyho-Galileo Research Laboratories, LLC
Dear Patients,We understand that your choice of a program through which to obtain assistance with fertility-related problems is the product of the careful consideration of a number of factors. We hope that the information provided below – in the form of answers to questions asked by real patients at real centers – will help you to better understand some of the scientific issues of relevance to the diagnosis and treatment of infertility, and serve to assure you that the clinicians upon whom you have chosen to rely for your care are in turn relying on the most current scientific information available in the design and operation of their IVF laboratory.
Jacques Cohen, PhD
Tyho-Galileo Research Laboratories
How does an established assisted reproductive technology (ART) program become a Tyho-Galileo Center?
To become a Tyho-Galileo Center, qualified ART programs must apply to and be accepted by the Tyho-Galileo board of directors. They must be committed to excellence in the provision of reproductive services, and must meet and agree to maintain certain standards of clinical practice – all of which is evidenced during annual site visits by a senior member of the Tyho-Galileo team. Tyho-Galileo Centers are also committed to ongoing research, and to fostering an atmosphere of inquiry and learning, as a means by which to advance the science and practice of reproductive medicine. Once designated to participate, Tyho-Galileo Centers provide data and case material for research, and agree to collaborate in clinical trials to test the efficacy of new and improved methods of treatment.
What is the Galileo mission?
Tyho-Galileo Research Laboratories, LLC was founded by Jacques Cohen, PhD and a team of accomplished scientists whose work to date has led to a number of breakthroughs in embryology, genetics and assisted reproductive technology, as well as in cancer treatment and other fields. Their work has paved the way for significant advancements in human embryo freezing, microsurgical interventions and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), to name but a few areas of impact. These pioneering scientists recognized that despite the proven link between research and superior results, clinical pressures and priorities make it difficult for even large ART programs to set aside time for research or to do what it takes to participate in clinical trials. Tyho-Galileo’s founders also recognized that meaningful research requires access to more case material than is typically available at any one site. Tyho-Galileo seeks to address these issues through the development of a worldwide network of laboratories committed to both ongoing research and excellence in the provision of patient care services.
Tyho-Galileo’s mission is:
- To conduct research that will lead to the development of improved diagnostic and therapeutic procedures and techniques, thereby increasing the quality, safety, predictability and efficiency of assisted reproductive technology;
- To support advancements in embryology research to enhance understanding of fertilization and conception, and of the underlying causes of infertility and associated genetically-based diseases;
- To encourage collaboration among and between embryologists, reproductive endocrinologists and other clinicians as a means by which to ensure both that scientific advancements are translated on a timely basis to clinical practice and that research efforts are focused on issues and concerns of relevance to practitioners and their patients;
- To promote a “laboratory without walls” to foster collaboration among scientists at ART centers throughout the US and around the world; and
- To serve as a vehicle through which funds for research, data and case material can be shared among and between laboratories in a variety of locations worldwide to support the achievement of Galileo’s research goals.
How does Tyho-Galileo benefit patients?
Reproductive endocrinologists, embryologists and others at an ART center that has been designated a participant in the Tyho-Galileo network have real-time, ready access to scientists involved in cutting edge research, as well as to consulting assistance provided by senior members of a team of embryologists associated with some of the world’s most successful IVF programs. Beyond this, patients at a assisted reproductive medicine program that has been designated a Tyho-Galileo Center have the benefit of knowing that the clinicians upon whom they depend for their care and treatment are themselves involved in and knowledgeable of the latest advances in the diagnosis and treatment of infertility.
What are some of the research activities of note with which the Tyho-Galileo team is involved?
This is a very exciting time for assisted reproductive medicine. Knowledge about the underlying biology of reproduction and early development is finally approaching a mature state. Recent bioscience milestones, such as the draft human genome sequence, have paved the way for significant and accelerated advancement of this knowledge in the near future. Tyho-Galileo scientists are currently working on the development of various molecular and manipulative techniques that show clear promise for dealing with a wide spectrum of issues in human infertility and human genetic disease. Gene expression studies, human egg and embryo freezing improvements, RNA interference (RNAi) research and refinement of techniques for PGD are among the many areas of work with which members of the Tyho-Galileo team are involved. Through the Tyho-Galileo network, this research and development will be taken to the next level – where substantial positive impact on routine human clinical assisted reproduction treatment can be anticipated.
How are Tyho-Galileo Centers distinguished from other ART programs?
Assisted reproductive medicine programs chosen as Tyho-Galileo Centers are unique among their counterparts in the marketplace in that they have been recognized for their commitment to excellence in both clinical practice and the advancement of scientific developments through embryology research. Reproductive endocrinologists and embryologists affiliated with a participating Tyho-Galileo Center have on-line, real-time access to the most current information available and can put that information to work in the enhancement of the care that they are able to provide to their patients.
Does Tyho-Galileo provide assistance in addressing the challenges of difficult cases?
Yes, senior members of the Tyho-Galileo team are available to assist in addressing the challenges of particularly difficult and/or complicated cases. Services provided to clinicians and embryologists at participating Tyho-Galileo Centers range from on-line, “members only” access to detailed information about protocols and techniques, to telephone consultations with a Tyho-Galileo researcher most familiar with the issue or problem at hand, to on-site review of case specifics. Where appropriate and with permission from all concerned, Tyho-Galileo can make information on relevant and potentially helpful experiences at a participating Tyho-Galileo Center in one region or country available to another center in an effort to ensure that precious time is not wasted on efforts to reinvent the wheel to address a particular clinical issue.
Who are the Tyho-Galileo scientists?
The scientists affiliated with Tyho-Galileo Research Laboratories, LLC are well established in their fields and can count among their accomplishments many of the most important advances in the treatment of infertility. Members of the Tyho-Galileo research team and a brief summary of their areas of interest are as follows.
Jacques Cohen, Ph.D. is the founder and president of Tyho-Galileo Research Laboratories, LLC. Dr. Cohen has served as the Scientific Director of Assisted Reproduction at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, New Jersey since 1995 and is associated with several laboratories involved in IVF and PGD, both in Europe and throughout the US.
Dr. Cohen was trained at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Holland as a reproductive physiologist specializing in in vitro fertilization and cryobiology. His initial studies of human embryology occurred in the late 1970s and he was one of the first embryologists in Bourn Hall Clinic in the UK. Dr. Cohen moved to the US in 1985 after having studied the application of IVF in male factor infertility and the cryopreservation of blastocysts. In Atlanta, Georgia, he and colleagues developed methods for micro-surgically assisting human fertilization, precursor methods to ICSI. The same team was responsible for the development of assisted hatching and co-culture techniques. In 1989, Dr. Cohen became the laboratory director for the IVF program at Cornell University Medical College in New York, where aneuploidy and mosaicism diagnosis, as well as fragment removal, were added to the list of technologies in use in assisted reproductive medicine. Dr. Cohen and his team have continued their work on the development of new methods in cryobiology and preimplantation genetics at Saint Barnabas Medical Center and in the various other centers with which they are affiliated.
Dr. Cohen travels extensively and is a frequent lecturer at conferences and seminars on topics in human fertility research worldwide. He has authored more than 200 publications, serves on the editorial boards of numerous peer-reviewed publications and is widely recognized as a leader in the science of reproductive medicine. Dr. Cohen has held faculty appointments at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, at Cornell University Graduate School of Medical Sciences and at Cornell University Medical College, where he was a tenured associate professor of embryology in the department of obstetrics and gynecology. Dr. Cohen holds a faculty appointment at the College of Physicians & Surgeons at Columbia University.
Santiago Munné, Ph.D. is a founding member and vice president of Tyho-Galileo Research Laboratories, LLC and serves as the organization’s leader in the study of preimplantation genetics. Dr. Munné has served as the director of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) at the Institute of Reproductive Medicine and Science at Saint Barnabas Medical Center since 1995 and has served since its founding as director of Reprogenetics, LLC, a laboratory specializing in the provision of PGD services to IVF laboratories throughout the US and abroad.
Dr. Munné, who is originally from Barcelona (Catalonia), completed his Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Pittsburgh and joined Dr. Cohen at Cornell University Medical College, New York in 1991. While there he developed the first preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) test to detect embryonic numerical chromosome abnormalities to avoid Down's syndrome and other abnormalities. For this and related work Dr. Munné, was recognized with two consecutive prizes, in 1994 and 1995, by the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology. Since joining Dr. Cohen at St. Barnabas, Dr. Munné has developed the first test to detect chromosome translocations in human embryos, which significantly reduces the chance of miscarriage while at the same time helping to avoiding birth defects associated with this condition. For this work, Dr. Munné was awarded the general Program Prize of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in 1996. Following on his research on PGD of aneuploidy, Dr. Munné and his team demonstrated a significant decrease in spontaneous abortions after PGD in women 35 and older undergoing IVF and PGD, which was again recognized in 1998 with the prize paper of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology. His PGD team has been able to increase implantation rates, and lower spontaneous abortions and trisomic offspring in women of advanced maternal age undergoing PGD.
Dr. Munné and his team are recognized as the world’s leaders in the diagnosis of translocations and chromosomal abnormalities related to advanced maternal age. The focus of his current research activities is on the development of new PGD techniques and on enhancing the understanding of the impact of chromosomal abnormalities in human reproduction. Dr. Munné has authored more than 100 publications, and is a frequent lecturer, both nationally and internationally, on his team’s work and the field of preimplantation genetics. Dr. Munné has held faculty appointments at the University of Pittsburgh and at Cornell University Medical College, and is presently affiliated with Rutgers University.
George Pieczenik, Ph.D. is a founding member of Tyho-Galileo Research Laboratories, LLC and serves as the team’s leader in the study of ligands and related basic research.
James J. Stachecki, Ph.D. has worked in the field of reproductive science for more than 14 years and participates as a member of the Tyho-Galileo research team as a staff scientist in the area of cryobiology.
Dr. Stachecki obtained his master’s degree in genetics from Central Michigan University and his Ph.D. in physiology from Wayne State University School of Medicine in 1996 and has worked since then in the laboratory of Jacques Cohen. With assistance from Jacques Cohen and Steen Willadsen, Dr. Stachecki developed and patented a freezing medium that has shown remarkable potential for improving gamete and embryo storage. At the 1998 annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, he received the general prize paper award for his work in the area of oocyte cryopreservation.
Dr. Stachecki has published numerous manuscripts and abstracts in a wide variety of journals including Development, Biophysics Journal, Biology of Reproduction, and Cryobiology. The majority of his recent research has focused on cryobiology, specifically the storage of human oocytes and embryos. Recognized as a top researcher in the cryobiology field, Dr. Stachecki is currently working on improving methods of storing embryos, oocytes, and blastocysts through conventional slow-cooling and vitrification techniques for a number of species including humans. Dr. Stachecki participates in the provision of clinical services as well, and is particularly proficient in the performance of embryo biopsies and fixation for PGD. In addition to his scientific expertise he is proficient in the area of computer technology, website design, and is a semi-professional photographer.
Nury Steuerwald, Ph.D. is a senior member of the Tyho-Galileo research team and current serves as a senior researcher for reprogenetics and an adjunct research scientist at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Dr. Steuerwald began her career in mathematics and computer science, and went on to pursue advanced studies in reproductive biology. Dr. Steuerwald received a Ph.D., summa cum laude, from Florida International University in Miami in 1999. She completed her dissertation research in the laboratory of Drs. Jacques Cohen and Santiago Munné, with whom she collaborated to conduct quantitative expression analysis in single oocytes with particular emphasis on cell cycle regulation and checkpoint gene expression during meiosis. Dr. Steuerwald has been affiliated with several reproductive technology laboratories, and made an invaluable contribution to the formation of the Charlotte Genomics Consortium. She worked tirelessly to obtain DNA microarray technology that would enable her team to identify clinically useful reproductive markers by providing a global genetic perspective of reproductive tissues. Ultimately, they may be able to determine which reproductive markers are critical indicators of prognosis and the differing factors between good and poor responders of follicular stimulation. Dr. Steuerwald was an active participant in the planning committee that prepared the successful grant applications to establish the microarray facility and she remains an active member of the Executive Committee that provides guidance and oversight to its operations. Given her background in computer science and biology, Dr. Steuerwald is particularly interested in research involving the application of bioinformatics.
Dr. Steuerwald and her colleagues at UNC are currently collaborating with scientists at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science at Saint Barnabas to examine gene expression during oogenesis and embryogenesis, and to conduct experiments intended to elucidate the integrated mechanisms regulated by nitric oxide in early embryonic development.
Dagan Wells, Ph.D. is a key member of the Tyho-Galileo team and serves as senior staff scientist for PGD research.
Steen M. Willadsen, Ph.D., D.V.M. is a key member of the Tyho-Galileo team. He was the first person to clone an animal and has made significant groundbreaking discoveries in the area of chimeric animals, and embryo freezing.
Mina Alikani, M.Sc. is a founding member of the Tyho-Galileo team and currently serves at co-director of the In Vitro fertilization laboratory at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science at Saint Barnabas.
Ms. Alikani received a BA in Biology, with a minor in chemistry, from California State University, Northridge in 1983. She went on to receive a master of science in biology from California State University in 1985, and wrote her master’s thesis on immunofluorescence localization of extracellular matrix component(s) in two species of sea urchin. While completing her studies at California State University, Ms. Alikani also served as a research assistant and part-time member of the faculty in the department of biology. Ms. Alikani worked from 1983 through 1988 as an embryologist in the In Vitro Fertilization Program at Northridge Hospital Medical Center. Ms. Alikani moved to Cornell University Medical Center in 1989, and served as a senior laboratory supervisor in the Cornell IVF program until 1995, when she joined the team at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in New Jersey.
Ms. Alikani has published extensively in peer review journals and has authored and co-authored chapters in a number of assisted reproduction text books. Ms. Alikani is a PhD candidate (by external mode) in the department of reproduction and development at Monash University in Clayton, Australia, where professors Alan O. Trounson and Steen M. Willadsen serve as her advisor and supervisor, respectively.
How can patients learn more about the kinds of work being done by the Tyho-Galileo team, including clinical trials?
For more information about Galileo Research Laboratories, LLC, including information on clinical trials with which members of the team are involved, log onto the Galileo website at www.galileocenters.com or ask your physician for more details.
