Fertility Genomics (FG) is both a B to C and a B to B, DNA testing company, that aims to advise its clients (infertile couples or IVF clinics), which assisted conception method will have the best chance of succeeding for themselves or their customers. FG is a start up company based on the world leading research of Dr Sean Brown a senior lecturer at Abertay University. It was founded by Dr Douglas Lester a former medical genetic lecturer at Abertay University.
FG posts out a simple saliva kit direct to individual customers. These kits are posted back to FG in a postage prepaid envelope. DNA is then extracted from these samples, which is then used to carry out whole exome sequencing of all 22,000 genes. Any relevant male or female fertility genes are then analysed using our novel Fertility Probability Score (FPS). Our FPS determines the probability of the possible success of IVF for a particular customer. If this is particularly low, our customers are advised to use either the direct sperm injection method (ICSI) or enhanced ICSI.
Dr Brown is a world leading fertility physiologist, who was the first to identify both physiologically and genetically the underlying cause of unexplained male infertility patient, who was shown to be homozygous for a pathogenic variant in the CATSPERE gene. Dr Lester has 40 years postgraduate experience in medical genetics. For his PhD he helped identify several novel dominant pathogenic variants in the Rhodopsin protein, that were shown to be the cause of Retinitis Pigmentosa in several different patients. He also was the first in the world to identify the human UBE2J1 gene, which has been shown to cause male infertility in knockout mice.