Harvard researcher wins Korean medical award for fertility study

A Harvard Medical School researcher who has proposed treating ovarian aging by targeting hormone-producing cells outside the ovary's follicles has won the 13th KY Cha Award in Reproductive Medicine.

CHA Medical Center said Wednesday that David Pépin, an associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, received the award at the 82nd American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) Scientific Congress in Baltimore, Maryland.

Research on ovarian aging has traditionally focused on the follicles and the eggs inside them. Pépin's work looks instead at hormone production by stromal cells, which sit outside the follicles, as a potential treatment target. In 2021, he co-founded Oviva Therapeutics, a biotech company focused on women's reproductive health.

ASRM established the award in 2011 to recognize Cha Kwang-yul, a Korean fertility researcher who heads CHA Global Research Institute. Fourteen researchers have received it, from institutions including Harvard University, Cornell University and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

BY KIM MIN-YOUNG [[email protected]]