Prof. Dr. Willem Verpoest

Willem Verpoest (°1969) graduated at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, as Medical Bachelor, Bachelor in Surgery (MBBS) in 1995 and as Specialist in Obstetrics and Gynaecology (CCST) in 2003. He spent part of his training at Bristol, UK, working with Professor Michael Hull, Mr David Cahill and Mr Julian Jenkins, before starting to work with Professors Devroey, Liebaers and Van Steirteghem at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Brussels, Belgium.

He is currently Associate Medical Director in Reproductive Medicine and Coordinator for the Preimplantation Genetic Testing (PGT) programme at the Centre for Reproductive Medicine at Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel (5500 IVF/ICSI cycles annually), and Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. In 2010 he obtained a PhD in Medical Sciences (Vrij Universiteit Brussel) with a thesis entitled ‘The Clinical Reproductive Outcome of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis’. His main interests are reproductive genetics and reproductive immunology.

Current projects:

• the clinical reproductive value of PGT-A (coordinating investigator of the ESTEEM trial)
• meiosis gene dysfunction as a cause of infertility
• the effect of ovarian stimulation on embryo ploidy status
• the relationship between cumulus cell RNA gene expression and ploidy of the oocyte/embryo