The Howard Jacobs Lecture 2025
FERTILITY 2025 | LIVERPOOL
10TH JANUARY 2025
It is an honour and a
privilege to have given
this presentation…
Howard Jacobs is a pioneer in our field, and it is a huge honour to have been invited to present this lecture in his name.
Please see below for links to further educational material on each section of my presentation.
We will be extending the available material in the coming weeks, so please keep checking back to access further content.
About Professor Adam Balen
Adam Balen is an NHS consultant at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, UK, with a personal Chair in
Reproductive Medicine and Surgery. He is clinical lead of a large multidisciplinary reproductive medicine service, including paediatric & adolescent gynaecology. He has been interested in PCOS for many years and has been a member of the international consensus groups on its definition and management including the CRE-PCOS Guideline Group, published in 2018 and 2023. He is a member of the WHO Guideline Development Group on infertility and was responsible for formulating the FIGO definition of disorders of ovulation (2022). Amongst numerous national and international roles over the last 30 years, Adam is a past Chair of the British Fertility Society and the ESHRE SIG for Reproductive Medicine and sat on Council of the RCOG for 6 years. He founded the Fertility Education Initiative to improve education in schools on reproductive health. Adam has authored >280 papers (H index 81, >46,000 citations) and 16 books, including Infertility in Practice (5th edition 2022) and The Fertility Book – Your definitive guide to achieving a healthy pregnancy (2021), co- authored with his wife Grace Dugdale for people trying to conceive.
Emeritus Professor of Reproductive Endocrinology
University College and Middlesex School of Medicine
Past Chair and President of the BFS
Numerous roles for RCP, RSM, Society for Endocrinology
Past Chair, Biologicals Subcommittee, Committee on Safety of Medicine
University College London:
Director Division of Endocrinology
Director Cobbold Laboratories
Chair Clinical Research and Development Committee
About Infertility
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Useful Resources
PCOS
PCOS: A life long disease
Prevalence 8 – 13%
Main cause of anovulation & female infertility
High degree of comorbidities and economic burden
Annual UK healthcare costs almost double non-PCOS
Paediatric
& Adolescent
Gynaecology
Dedicated service for those with disorders of sexual development (DSDs)
Started in 1997
Links with multi-disciplinary team & regular MDT meetings
Joint clinics with paediatric endocrinology and surgery (urology, cloaca, Turner Syndrome, POI clinics etc..)
Fertility
Education
To ensure that people have a greater understanding and
awareness of fertility and reproductive health so they can make an
informed choice about their own fertility journey
Guidance
PCOS
BRITSpag
Fertility
Education
Initiative
Useful Videos
Useful Papers
The Fertility Book
In this comprehensive guide, world renowned fertility consultant Adam Balen and reproductive biologist Grace Dugdale reveal the genetic and lifestyle factors that make the biggest difference to your fertility.
