Douglas Lester, PhD, MSc, BSc (Hons)

Dr. Doug Lester is a human geneticist with over 40 years of postgraduate experience. He has worked in various laboratories in both the UK and South Africa. During this period, he worked on many inherited diseases.

Recently he has moved his expertise into the genetics of infertility; this occurred when he worked at the University of Alberta in Dundee. It was there that a world expert in fertility physiology approached him to help solve the genetic basis of infertility in a particularly interesting couple known as Francis and Andrew.

Previously, the fertility physiologists examined hundreds of individual sperm from Andrew and noted that the slo channel wasn’t working in any of them. From these results, he advised the couple to move from IVF, which failed them, to the direct sperm injection method known as ICSI. Fortunately, this method worked, and they now have a healthy baby called Heather.

But to do further analysis, Dr. Doug Lester carried out a new technique called next-generation DNA sequencing. From that analysis, he excitedly found six letters missing in one of Andrew’s salt channel genes, which was undoubtedly the cause of their infertility.

On the back of that, he formed Fertility Genomics, which sequences hundreds of sperm and ovum genes simultaneously. From that analysis, he can give out a risk score to the patient as to which fertility-assisted conception route is best for them.