Cancer Treatment and the Ovary

Dr. Anderson's undergraduate training in medicine was punctuated by PhD in MRC Brain Metabolism Unit in neuroendocrinology with George Fink. He subsequently trained in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Edinburgh, with interest in reproductive endocrinology fostered by WHO Research Fellow post in Hormonal Male Contraception. After completing subspecialty training in Reproductive Medicine as a lecturer with David Baird at the University of Edinburgh and a year in Sam Yen’s lab in San Diego he returned to the MRC Human Reproductive Sciences Unit in 1998 with a consultant post in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. Dr. Anderson was subsequently appointed to current post in the University in 2005. In recent years he has established a group investigating female reproductive lifespan, with laboratory and clinical aspects particularly related to the adverse effects of cancer treatment on fertility. Dr. Spears studied for her BSc (Hons) at the University of Edinburgh, followed by a DPhil at Oxford University, supervised by John Clarke. After two years in Irv Zucker’s laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley, and a year in the Brain Metabolism Unit in Edinburgh, she moved to Physiology at the University of Edinburgh. She has worked there since 1990, using animal models to investigate reproductive physiology, holding an MRC Training Fellowship, followed by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship, until she took up a University position in the Centre for Integrative Physiology in 2002. Her current work investigates the effects of chemotherapy treatment on female and male gonads, using a variety of tissue culture techniques.

Section I: Clinical

1. Ovarian Follicle Biology and the Basis for Gonadotoxicity 2. Relevant Cancer Diagnoses, Commonly Used Chemotherapy Agents and Their Biochemical Mechanisms of Action 3. Clinical Assessment of Ovarian Toxicity 4. The Current Understanding of Clinical Data on Ovarian Toxicity from Cancer Treatment

Section II: Laboratory Models

5. In Vivo Models of Ovarian Toxicity 6. In Vitro Models of Ovarian Toxicity

Section III: Strategies to Protect the Ovary

7. Ovarian Tissue Cryopreservation for Fertility Preservation 8. Current Clinical Approaches to Protecting the Ovary: GnRH Analogues 9. Preclinical Approaches to the Protection of Ovarian Function