Jacques Cohen, Phd, HCLD

Chief Scientific Officer

Jacques Cohen is a reproductive biologist, laboratory product developer and high complexity laboratory director (HCLD). He is often described as the most influential embryologist in the history of IVF. He has been associated with many of the critical innovations in Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) over the past 40 years.

After receiving his B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the State University of Leiden, Jacques went on to receive an M.Sc. in Reproductive Physiology from Leiden University. In 1981, he was awarded his PhD in Medicine from Erasmus University.

Jacques first came to attention of the IVF community as a post doc in the UK at Bourn Hall Clinic lab of Robert Edwards who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work associated with the birth of the first IVF baby. It was at Bourn Hall that Jacques successfully pioneered the freezing and thawing of a human blastocyst for use in IVF, an achievement that provided the foundational platform for many of the innovations that were to come in ART during the next 30 years.

In addition to blastocyst cryopreservation, some of the critical IVF breakthroughs associated with Jacques include assisted fertilization, assisted hatching, preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy, ooplasmic donation, single sperm freezing, CODA filtration, Global media, and GPS dishes. 

A serial entrepreneur, Jacques is the co-founder of Althea Science, which develops software solutions for laboratories and clinics. He was co-founder of Reprogenetics, a genetic screening service used in fertility clinics, which was acquired by Cooper Genomics in 2015. In addition, Jacques co-founded Life-Global/IVF-Online, a company also acquired by Cooper Surgical in 2018. Jacques is also the founder of Alpha – Scientists in Reproductive Medicine, a leading global professional group for scientists working in the field of Assisted Reproduction Technology (ART).

A widely published author, Jacques has written more than 300 articles for peer-reviewed scientific publications and authored several foundational textbooks concerning issues in ART. He is also Emeritus Chief Editor of Reproductive Biomedicine Online.