After working her way to the top of the field of reproductive science in her twenties, the question of fertility has always been both professional and personal for Dr Helen O’Neill.
“On a daily basis I would be faced with the devastating graph that shows ovarian reserve — the number of eggs — decline so dramatically over time, with the sharpest drop being after 30,” she said.
“I remember staring at it at a conference, counting the years ahead of me [and] thinking, I’m not in a relationship, I need to find someone, I need to be going out with them for a normal enough amount of time so we can procreate together. It felt so unfair.”
O’Neill, who is a lecturer in molecular genetics
