Gianpiero D. Palermo

Dr. Palermo is professor of reproductive medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, and Director of Assisted Fertilization and Andrology at Cornell’s Ronald O. Perelman and Claudia Cohen Center for Reproductive Medicine. In 1992, Dr. Palermo developed the revolutionary fertility procedure known as “intracytoplasmic sperm injection” (ICSI), in which a single sperm is directly injected into a mature egg. This technique has provided over 100,000 couples world-wide with the means to overcome multiple types of male factor infertility, and successfully have children. Dr. Palermo and his laboratory performed the first clinical trial on use of GM1 localization patterns to assess human male fertility, independently before Androvia was formed. He found that specific patterns tracked strongly with male fertility, with men with high Cap-Scores having very good pregnancy rates by natural conception or within three or fewer cycles of intrauterine insemination, versus men who scored below that threshold, who had very poor chances of success. Dr. Palermo is a co-author on “Localization patterns of the ganglioside GM1 in human sperm are indicative of male fertility and independent of traditional semen measures” (Molecular Reproduction and Development 2017), in which these data are published.

Dr. Palermo received his MD from the University of Bari School of Medicine, his MSc at Brussels Free University and his PhD from Monash University. His groundbreaking discovery of ICSI and his continued clinical and scientific contributions have earned him multiple awards including the Serono Prize for Medical Research, the Barbara Eck Menning Founder’s Award, the Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine, and the Russian Crystal Tube Award. In 2014, he was named Embryologist of the Year. He has published well over 100 peer-reviewed papers and given over 300 scientific and clinical presentations.