Edward Holme Lecture 2023 - 21st March 2023

Professor Seang Lin Tan MBBS FRCOG FRCSC FACOG MMed (O&G) MBA

Professor Seang Lin Tan is a Full professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology, and holds the endowed James Edmund Dodds Chair in Obstetrics and Gynecology at McGill University in Canada. Prof Tan was the Chairman of McGill University's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and also served as Obstetrician and Gynecologist in Chief at the McGill University Health Centre for an unprecedented three terms from 1994-2010. He helped to establish three other endowed Chairs in Obstetrics and Gynecology in McGill University, the most of any Canadian University. He is the founding director and the Medical Director of OriginElle Fertility Clinic and Women’s Health Centers in Montreal and in Ottawa. Prof. Tan is the author of 18 books, over 310 original scientific papers and review articles, and over 320 research presentations. He has served on the editorial boards of 17 medical journals and is a frequent speaker at national and international scientific conferences. He has been visiting Professor at numerous medical schools and his fellows have gone to lead major departments and IVF programs in Canada, UK, Europe, Asia and Australasia.  His team has had many world and national firsts in the field of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility and his work has been published in leading scientific and medical journals including Nature, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet.

He was trained in Singapore and in the UK, where he was a fellow at the Middlesex Hospital, now part of University College London and later at King’s College Hospital. He founded and partnered with Professor Howard Jacobs, Stuart Campbell and Nobel Laureate Robert Edwards to found the London Women’s Clinic in Harley Street.

In 1978, he was awarded the Howard Eddey Gold Medal by the Royal Australian College of Surgeons and in 1983, he was awarded the MRCOG Gold Medal by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecology on the United Kingdom. In 2003, he graduated from the New York University/London School of Economics/HEC Grande Ecole Paris TRIUM Executive MBA Program with distinction.

Dr. Tan is a world-renowned expert on infertility and a pioneer in the simplification of in vitro fertilization. He founded the McGill Reproductive Center and headed the team that produced the world’s first IVF and ICSI air transport pregnancies. His team is a pioneer in Canada in the use of in-vitro maturation (IVM) and vitrification of oocytes to preserve fertility in young cancer patients. As a result of this ground-breaking study, the team was the first in the world to accomplish a live delivery from an egg that had been vitrified, frozen, and then thawed in 2005.

Prof.  Tan has been a member or fellow of numerous international societies including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society (AGOS), American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM), American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), Androgen Excess Society, Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics (APGO), Association of Professors of Obstetrics & Gynecology (APOG), British Fertility Society, Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society (CFAS), European Society of Human Reproduction & Embryology, Infertility Awareness Association of Canada Inc. (IAAC), International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO), International Society for Fertility Preservation, Obstetrical and Gynecological Society, Royal Society of Medicine, Society for the Study of Endocrinology, International Academy on Human Reproduction and he served on  the International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology Expert Advisory Panels on Reproductive Medicine and Ultrasound. 

His team won first prize for basic science research at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in 2015 for the project -Unique geometry of sister kinetochores in human oocytes during meiosis.

He is the founding vice-president of the International Society of In-Vitro Fertilization (ISIVF), the Founding President of the International Society of in-vitro maturation of oocytes and the founding President of the Global Chinese Association for Reproductive Medicine (GCARM).

In 1998, he was awarded the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society – European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology Exchange Speaker Award, and in 1999, he was given the Resolve Award by the National Infertility Association of the United States for his outstanding contribution to the field of ultrasound. Prof. Tan was awarded the John Collins lecture at the CFAS meeting in 2001. In 2008, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of the United Kingdom awarded him the Singapore Lecture Gold Medal in appreciation of his substantial scientific contribution to the area of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Because of his innovative approach, he has been referred patients from around the world, including from leading UK medical schools and Ivy league programs in the USA. He has treated a number of Quebec celebrities, CEOs of large companies, Hollywood movie stars and Federal Government ministers.