Jerome F. Strauss III, M.D., Ph.D., and Carmen J. Williams, M.D., Ph.D.

In this issue of Seminars in Reproductive Medicine, Dr. Jerome Strauss, a member of the editorial board of Seminars in Reproductive Medicine, along with his colleague, Dr. Carmen Williams, have prepared an outstanding issue entitled, New Frontiers in Gamete Biology.

Jerome F. Strauss III is the Luigi Mastroianni Jr. Professor and founding Director of the Center for Research on Reproduction and Women's Health, and Associate Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania. He received the B.A. degree with Honors in Biology from Brown University and the M.D. and the Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. He served as a house officer in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he learned the science and art of reproductive medicine from Celso Ramon Garcia and Luigi Mastroianni Jr. He later joined the faculty in the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology, rising to the rank of Professor in 1985. He is currently Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)-sponsored National Cooperative Center in Infertility Research at the University of Pennsylvania. His past administrative experience includes nearly a decade as Associate Dean in the School of Medicine, and Principal Investigator and Program Director of the University of Pennsylvania's Medical Scientist Training Program. He serves as a member of the National Advisory Child Health and Human Development Council of the National Institutes of Health, and on the Board of Directors of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. Dr. Strauss's research interests include the regulation of steroid hormone biosynthesis; the genetics of polycystic ovary syndrome; trophoblast differentiation and placental endocrine function; and the biology of fetal membranes, a molecular control of sperm motility. Dr. Strauss has served as an editor or on the editorial boards of the Journal of Lipid Research, Endocrinology, the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Biology of Reproduction, Human Reproduction Update, and Placenta. He currently sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Women's Health and Gender-Based Medicine, Journal of the Society for Gynecologic Investigation, Journal of Endocrinology, Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism, and Seminars in Medicine, and is a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science. He is an editor of Steroids, and Senior Editor of Yen and Jaffe's Reproductive Endocrinology. Dr. Strauss's honors include election to AOA (1971), the University of Pennsylvania's Berwick Award for Teaching (1983) and Medical Student Government Award for Distinguished Teaching (1983); the President's Achievement Award from the Society for Gynecologic Investigation (1990), of which he is past President (2003); the Society for the Study of Reproduction Research Award (1992); election to the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences (1994); the Transatlantic Medal of the British Endocrine Society (1994); and the Beacon (2001) and Pioneer (2004) Awards for contributions to the reproductive sciences. He received the 2005 Distinguished Graduate Award from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, the highest honor that the School of Medicine bestows upon an alumnus. As of September 15, 2005, he will be Vice President of Medical Affairs and Dean of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine.

Dr. Williams attended medical school at Duke University and then relocated to Philadelphia where she did a residency in Obstetrics & Gynecology at Pennsylvania Hospital and a fellowship in Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania that was completed in 1993. Because of her strong interest in the basic science of reproductive biology, she returned to graduate school and was awarded a Ph.D. in Cell & Molecular Biology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Williams joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in 2000 as Assistant Professor in Obstetrics & Gynecology. At the University of Pennsylvania, she continues to perform cutting-edge research on gamete biology and infertility while seeing patients as part of the Penn Fertility Care clinical practice.

I anticipate that the readers of this issue of Seminars in Reproductive Medicine will find the articles to be extremely up to date, timely, and of clinical importance.