Jeremy Thompson uses IVF research in humans and livestock to be an Adelaide pacesetter in commercialising area
Jeremy Thompson descibed how, as a young science student (top right), a temporary job as a goat embryologist working on a farm/breeding centre in the Adelaide proved "a life-changing experience” that propelled him to a career including the highest honour for research in reproductive biology.
Professor Jeremy Thompson became an Adelaide-based leader in IVF (in vitro fertilisation) across human reproductive health and livestock production.
Thompson’s overall research interest on the impact of the micro-environment surrounding oocytes (immature egg cells) and embryos started as a youth who loved working on the Queensland farms of his mother’s relatives. His role in bringing the benefits of the IVF to the livestock industry started at Queensland University where he completed his bachelor of science (honours) on the reproductive activity of an Australian native mouse in 1980.
Thompson was approached by Adelaide University obstetrics and gynaecology professor Bob Seamark offering a temporary job as a goat embryologist working on a farm/breeding centre in the Adelaide. Thompson recalled: “They were long days and not much sleep, as I was embryologist and farmhand all in one. It was a life-changing experience.”
It led him to the veterinary school at Queensland University to do his philosophy doctorate on IVF in sheep and a short post at Murdoch University veterinary school in Western Australia, with professor Ray Wales. After this project, looking at creating transgenic sheep with different wool properties, was shortened, Thompson was recruited to the-then New Zealand ministry of agriculture and fisheries research centre, Ruakura, near Hamilton. In the heady days when multiple ovulation and embryo transfer technology was having a major effect on sheep and cattle,Thompson worked on research with another doyen of the field, H. Robin Tervit, and transferred his IVF interest to cattle.
After 13 years in New Zealand and a year in York, United Kingdom, with professor Henry Leese, learning about embryo metabolism, Thompson returned to Australia with his young family. He was approached by professors Rob Norman and Sarah Robertson from Adelaide University in 1999 to manage the clinical laboratories that served the Repromed clinical infertility group.
Although he continued to be engaged with clinical IVF, Thompson “missed the research and the work on cattle IVF too much” and returned to being a full-time researcher in 2004. He held leadership positions within Adelaide University, in particular Robinson Research Institute and the Australian Research Council’s centre of excellence for nanoscale biophotonics. He became a fellow of the Society for Reproductive Biology and awarded its highest honour: The Founders Lecture.
Thompson’s significant research skills earned three consecutive Australian National Health and Medical Research Council fellowships, while successfully navigating interdisciplinary research. He produced more than 200 publications (book chapters, reports, reviews, journals). He gained clinical experience as the laboratory director of Reproductive Medicine Laboratories for four years that serviced the laboratory needs of, then bought, Repromed.
Thompson’s commercialisation experience was developed through a 10-year partnership between Adelaide University, University Cook Medical LLC and Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. He was a champion of mentoring the transition from research to business development within the Robinson Research Institute. Thompson initiated two startup research businesses: ART Lab Solutions Pty Ltd. (for cattle breeding) and Fertilis Pty Ltd (human IVF). following his passion for better care of embryos through IVF automation.
