Chris WCL Ford

I was born in 1947 in Sussex.  I had a happy childhood and attended the local grammar school.  In 1965 I went to Birmingham University to read Biochemistry and graduated with a 2:1 in 1968.  I returned to Birmingham to do a PhD again in Biochemistry which I completed in 1971.  I then did a 2yr post-doc in the Biochemistry Department at Edinburgh University before moving to the Johnson Research Foundation at the University of Pennsylvania, helped by a Fulbright fellowship. 

 

I entered the world of Andrology in 1975 when seeking to return to the UK, I answered an advert from Professor Geoffrey Waites for a post-doctoral metabolic biochemist.  This started a fruitful collaboration in Reading that lasted for 11 years.  We investigated the mode of action of the male contraceptive alpha-cholorohydrin.  We were the first to establish the stereospecificity of its action and went on to discover the related contraceptive action of 6-chloro-6-deoxysugars.   Sadly both alpha-cholorohydrin and the 6-chloro-6-deoxysugars turned out to be neurotoxic and were abandoned as potential contraceptives for humans.  However, they revealed the potential of the sperm isoform of glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDHs) as a contraceptive target which still attracts some research interest.  It was an exciting time in Reading other people in the lab included John Walton, James Leask, Trevor Cooper, Cheng Hei Yeung and Nigel Jenkins and I benefitted from the skilled assistance of Anne Harrison.

 

By 1986 Geoff Waites had moved to WHO in Geneva and it was time to leave Reading.  I was fortunate to be offered a Senior Fellowship in Bristol by another renowned figure, Michael Hull. This meant a change of emphasis from preventing fertile men from conceiving to helping infertile men to conceive.  This presented many interesting challenges including taking a hand in managing a developing donor insemination and IVF service.  One of Mike’s big ideas was that the diagnosis of male fertility should depend on sperm function and not sperm numbers and we put much effort into evaluating sperm function tests.  Another problem was that sperm from most potential semen donors did not survive cryopreservation and with Eileen McLaughlin we investigated this in depth.  This led into an interest in calcium regulation of sperm function since elevated intracellular calcium is a characteristic of frozen-thawed sperm.  John Aitken introduced me to the effects of reactive oxygen species on sperm which began another productive avenue of research which continues elsewhere to this day.  I continued my interest in metabolism and the role of glucose in supporting human sperm fertility, one student being Andy Williams the present managing editor of Human Reproduction.  The group in Bristol never recovered from Mike Hull’s untimely death and I took early retirement in 2006. 

 

I was able to conclude my career by returning to Birmingham to work for 2 years in Professor Chris Barratt’s group where we were able to establish a role for protein S-nitrosylation in sperm. 

 

Now, I enjoy my family, go trout fishing, cultivate my allotment and do a little freelance editing!