Joseph D. Schulman

Biography

oseph D. Schulman, M.D., founder of the Genetics & IVF Institute, currently serves as the Chairman of the Institute's Board of Directors, and was Chief Executive Officer and Medical Director of GIVF from 1984 until 1998. He is internationally recognized in the fields of human reproduction and genetics, and is the only American physician to have trained with Drs. Robert G. Edwards and Patrick Steptoe of Britain, the inventors of in vitro fertilization (IVF). Dr. Schulman was also the first director of the Medical Genetics Program at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he was a research scientist and served on the faculty for ten years. He has served as a consultant to numerous academic and research institutions, has produced over 200 original contributions to the medical literature, and currently holds an affiliate professorship at the College of Medicine of Virginia Commonwealth University, with an additional teaching appointment at the University of California - San Diego. Dr. Schulman is well known as one of the pioneers in the creation of the specialties of assisted reproduction and prenatal genetics in the United States, and was the impetus behind development of many important concepts and techniques that have become standard in these important fields. After graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1966, Dr. Schulman originally trained in pediatrics at the Massachusetts General Hospital (1966-68) and then did a genetics fellowship at the NIH (1968-70). While at NIH, he decided to specialize in the fields of human genetics and reproduction, and subsequently was fully trained in obstetrics and gynecology at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. He felt that the combination of all these disciplines would provide a unique foundation of formal qualifications for pursuing his medical and research interests. Returning from England in 1974, Dr. Schulman became the head of the Section on Human Biochemical Genetics at NICHD where he remained until 1983. During his tenure at the NIH he conducted extensive research and published numerous scientific papers on human genetic diseases, and also founded and directed the NIH Interinstitute Program in Medical Genetics. After the birth of the first IVF babies in England, Dr. Schulman left NIH and started one of the first American IVF programs while becoming a Professor at George Washington University. While at GW he hired Andrew Dorfmann as senior IVF embryologist. Their collaboration has endured over two decades since their subsequent creation of GIVF, and Andy continues as the Institute's head of embryology. GIVF was formed as a joint venture with the Fairfax Hospital Association, now known as Inova Health System, one of the largest regional hospital systems in the United States. In the mid 1990s Dr. Schulman, being continuously attentive to the latest scientific research, learned of a team in Belgium that had developed a new technique called ICSI, (intracytoplasmic sperm injection) for successfully microinjecting a single human sperm into a living egg. This promised to be revolutionary for the treatment of male infertility in the frequent cases where, even when using IVF, the sperm were unable to spontaneously penetrate into the egg. GIVF was the first infertility clinic in the United States to use ICSI and was the first in America to report pregnancies using that method. Dr. Schulman described this pioneering ICSI experience in a major address at the 1994 meeting of the American Fertility Society. In the mid 1990s, the Institute, under Dr. Schulman's leadership, developed an entirely new method called NSA (non-surgical sperm aspiration) for non-surgical treatment of certain cases of male infertility. NSA avoided the need for testicular surgery and also for vasectomy reversals, and could be effectively combined with ICSI. This new method was highly successful and popular with patients, and was copied all over the world. Around the same time, under Dr. Schulman’s direction, GIVF started the first human program in the world for preserving female reproduction prior to cancer treatment using cryopreservation of ovarian tissue slices. Also in the 1990s, Dr. Schulman recognized that a breakthrough technique being utilized in animals for gender selection had the potential to be adopted for use in humans. He understood that new methods of DNA testing (fluorescence in situ hybridization, FISH) already in use by the Institute’s genetics labs were the key to safely and rapidly examining the feasibility of sorting human sperm. Preliminary testing of this concept was successful, and today GIVF holds the worldwide exclusive license for sperm sorting in humans. Dr. Schulman named this highly innovative approach MicroSort® and began a clinical trial with the FDA that is ongoing at the present time and has already resulted in the births of hundreds of normal children. Before retiring from full-time active medical duty with the Institute, Dr. Schulman recognized yet another significant avenue for marrying the Institute's broad medical and scientific capabilities with a market opportunity. In the late 1990s GIVF established the first two modern IVF centers in China, first in Shanghai and then subsequently in Guangzhou. GIVF, which has always attracted international patients in search of treatment, was now able to take its capabilities beyond the United States. Today Dr. Schulman is an active member of the GIVF Board of Directors, serving as its Chairman. He pursues his lifelong thirst for new ideas and developments in reproduction and genetics by continuing to study the latest scientific and professional developments and helping to catalyze continuing GIVF innovations. As an obstetrician, pediatrician, geneticist, luminary in the field of human reproduction, and former research scientist, Dr. Schulman embodies what GIVF has come to represent.

Research Interest

 Genetics