Some foundations of contemporary methods for culturing preimplantation embryos; a personal account

This article traces the history of the work on mammalian embryos carried out by the author, his students and related scientists. It traces the work from the initial experiments at the King Ranch Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania in 1966, the set up of an embryo culture laboratory at the Department of Veterinary Physiology, University of Sydney and the work within that laboratory from 1967 to 1974. This is followed by an account of the author's subsequent work at Murdoch University from 1975 till his retirement in 1996. The significant role of some of the author's graduate students in human IVF is also documented.