Diana Thomas, M.A.
President & CEO

In 1995, Diana Thomas recruited a donor to conceive her first son. Drawing from that experience, in 1996, Diana founded X and Y Consulting, Inc. an international egg donor recruiting agency that matched couples across the US and Canada with donors throughout the world. She has since managed over 2,000 donor-recipient matches.

Frustrated by the challenges involved in Fresh Egg Donation, in 2004, Diana, Drs. Jeffrey Boldt and James Akin founded Cryo Eggs International LP. In 2005, these efforts led the world's first “frozen egg bank baby.”

Jeffrey Boldt, Ph.D.
Scientific Director

Dr. Boldt is one of the early US pioneers in early egg freezing technology. Dr. Boldt has lectured extensively and authored many national and international articles on infertility, and serves as both Program and Scientific Director, Assisted Fertility Services for Community Hospital-Indianapolis and Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics at Indiana University School of Medicine.

James W. Akin, MD, FACOG
Medical Director

Dr. Akin has practiced infertility for 20 years in both an academic university setting as well as in private practice. He is board certified in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility. He has published numerous medical articles on infertility in peer-reviewed journals and continues to do clinical infertility research. He is currently in private practice in Lexington, Kentucky, USA, and is owner and Medical Director of Bluegrass Fertility Center, Inc.

Our Scientific and Medical Advisory Board

Dr. Simon Fishel	Dr. Mark D. Johnson
Dr. Steven F. Mullen	Dr. Mark Hughes
Dr. Ana Cobo

Our growing Scientific and Medical Advisory Board is pleased to announce the additions of Drs. Simon Fishel and Mark Johnson to our team.

Dr. Simon Fishel

Dr. Fishel began his research career at the University of Cambridge where he gained his PhD under the supervision of Professor Robert Edwards.

During these early years Dr Fishel, amongst other research work, was the first to demonstrate that the embryo ‘communicates' with its environment; and, later, was the first to publish on the secretion of HCG by the human embryo.

Concomitant with his appointment as a don at Churchill College, Cambridge in 1978, was the award of the prestigious Beit Memorial Foundation Fellowship; and he also became a Cambridge University Lecturer.

Subsequently, in 1980, while maintaining his University position, Dr Fishel became Deputy Scientific Director at the opening of the world's first "test tube baby clinic" at Bourn Hall in Cambridge continuing his work with Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe.

It was at Bourn Hall that Dr Fishel was renowned for his scientific publications of a number of seminal papers on the early work of IVF and human embryology. He had been working with Robert Edwards for a number of years before the birth of the world's first test tube baby, Louise Brown.

Dr Fishel is one of the world's most experienced practitioners in the field of Assisted Reproduction Technology/ Assisted Conception, and after almost 30 years, is the “longest-running” practitioner of clinical human embryology/IVF. He has been dubbed "the father of more than 10000 babies" and has established IVF clinics all over the world, including being part of the first team invited by the W.H.O. to introduce IVF to mainland China. He is regarded as one of the pioneers of in vitro fertilisation technology and specifically the use of micromanipulation techniques for sperm injection and embryo biopsy.

Dr. Mark D. Johnson

Dr. Mark D. Johnson, a Reproductive Endocrinologist-Infertility specialist and Clinical Geneticist, is the Director of the Phoenix Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis Center and the Division of Reproductive Genetics at the Arizona Reproductive Medicine Specialists. In addition to his clinical practice, he is a Clinical Associate Professor of the University of Arizona School of Medicine and is on the faculty of the Residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center.

He is Board Certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology with subspecialty Certification in Reproductive Endocrinology-Infertility and is Board Certified in the specialty of Medical Genetics.

Dr. Johnson has held several offices in the Phoenix OB-GYN Society and in the Arizona Section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). He was the President of the Phoenix OB-GYN Society in 2004-2005 and is presently Chair of the Arizona Section ACOG for 2008-2010.

Dr Johnson received his B.S. degree at the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1974 and his M.D. degree at Tulane University in 1978. Following completion of his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology (1978-1982) and after fulfilling a commitment in the Air Force as an Obstetrician Gynecologist (1982-1987), he pursued his Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Fellowship training at the Medical College of Georgia (1987-1989). During his fellowship, he developed an interest in genetics research and was selected as a Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). During his term as a Research Fellow at the NIH (1989-1993), he completed the NIH Clinical Fellowship in Medical Genetics.

He then joined the faculty of the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Stanford University School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor in the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility. In 1996 he became Assistant Professor in Residence and Chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Harbor Medical Center. His academic career has included significant research experience in embryo development. Dr. Johnson entered private practice in 1998 in West Palm Beach, Florida where he was the Medical Director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Genetics before his move to Phoenix in 2000.

Dr. Steven F. Mullen

Born and raised in Minnesota, Dr. Mullen completed a Ph.D. degree in cryobiology at the University of Missouri, followed by postdoctoral training in reproductive cryobiology at University of Missouri. He then established a reproductive cryobiology laboratory at 21st Century Medicine, Inc., where he continues to focus on female fertility preservation technology.

Dr. Mullen has served as director of the International Cryobiology Young Researchers group and was Visiting Scholar at Shandong University and Shandong Provincial Hospital, Shandong Province, Jinan, China. He was elected as an Honorary Fellow into Phi Zeta, the honor society of veterinary medicine and received the Donald K. Anderson Award at the University of Missouri, for the outstanding graduate research fellow of 2006.

He has published 22 peer-reviewed journal articles, given 12 invited presentations and written four book chapters.

Dr. Mark Hughes

Few scientists and physicians enjoy an international reputation of the scale of Dr. Mark Hughes' stature. Best-known for his work on single-cell analysis and pre-implantation diagnosis, Hughes screens externally fertilized human eggs for a specific hereditary disease before transferring them to the mother's womb, eliminating the possibility of passing the disease to the child.

A native of Minnesota, Dr. Hughes earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, then was a postdoctoral fellow in cell biology at the Baylor College of Medicine, where he also earned a medical degree. Hughes completed a residency in internal medicine at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina in 1986, and a fellowship in medical genetics at Baylor.

Dr. Hughes has also held various teaching, medical and administrative positions at the Institute for Molecular Genetics, the Prenatal Genetics Center at Baylor Affiliated Hospitals, the National Center for Human Genome Research at the National Institutes of Health and the Georgetown University Medical Center.

He currently holds several titles at Wayne State University in Michigan, including director of basic research at the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics; director of the division of translational research in the department of obstetrics and gynecology; and director of the Diagnostic Genetics Laboratories in the department of pathology.

Dr. Hughes has used pre-implantation diagnosis to screen for several genetic disorders, including cystic fibrosis, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, factor VIII deficiency, Tay Sachs disease, myotonic dystrophy, Huntington's disease and Lesch Nyhan syndrome.

Dr. Hughes founded Genesis Genetics Institute to provide expert laboratory services for families world wide who are affected by inherited diseases.

Dr. Ana Cobo

Ana Cobo, PhD, has been a member of the embryology staff at Instituto Valenciano de Infertilidad (IVI), Valencia, Spain, since 1995 and is currently in charge of the Cryobiology Unit. She obtained her Master of Biological Sciences degree in Biology of Reproduction at the University of Chile in 1994, a Masters degree in Human Reproduction in 1998, and a PhD degree at the University of Valencia, Spain, in 2003.

Dr Cobo's major areas of interest are female fertility preservation through oocyte and embryo cryopreservation. She is active in investigating novel treatments, including vitrification as a new approach to oocyte banking, preserving fertility in cancer patients, and novel approaches to safe cryostorage.

Our Psychology Department

Dr. Ray Lemberg

Dr Ray Lemberg,Clinical Psychologist, in practice for 32 years, provides psychological screenings for egg donors and surrogates.

Dr Lemberg's doctorate is from the University of Maryland. His adult internship was from Sheppard-Enoch Pratt and Springfield Hospitals (Baltimore, MD.) and child internship from JFK Institute, Pediatric Hospital at Johns Hopkins (Baltimore, MD) He is in private practice in Arizona.