Professor David Gardner, AM

Group Director of ART, Scientific Innovation & Research.

Professor David Gardner is an IVF pioneer and world-renowned scientist, as well as Virtus Health’s Group Director of ART, Scientific Innovation & Research and Scientific Director of Melbourne IVF.

In 2017 he was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA), Australia’s highest scientific honour, and further was the recipient of the Distinguished Researcher Award from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine,  in further recognition of his significant contributions to reproductive sciences over the last four decades, 

Much of David’s research has been successfully translated into clinical procedures, with the majority of human IVF clinics around the world utilising some of the technologies he developed.

Professor Gardner pioneered blastocyst culture and transfer, and developed the grading system which carries his namesake the 'Gardner Grade’ which is used internationally to grade human blastocysts.

He completed his PhD (1987) under the supervision of Professor Henry Leese at the University of York, UK. In 1988 he moved to Harvard Medical School to work with Professor John Biggers, after which he moved to Monash, Australia, in 1989, to work with Alan Trounson and Carl Wood.

In 1997 he became the Scientific Director of the Colorado Centre for Reproductive Medicine in Denver, which became the leading IVF program in the USA, where his work on human embryo culture conditions revolutionised how human IVF is performed, today with the development and clinical introduction of blastocyst transfer, leading to single embryo transfer worldwide.

In 2007 he was appointed Professor and Chair of Department at the University of Melbourne and promoted to the level of Distinguished Professor in 2018. 

In 2016 he became the Scientific Director of Melbourne IVF. 

He has published 300 papers and chapters and has edited 15 books ​on IVF and embryology. His collective works have culminated in over 30,000 citations and an H index of 100, making him one of the most highly cited scientists in Reproductive Biology & Medicine in the world today.

In 2022, David was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his Services to Reproductive Medicine and Education over the last four decades.