Professor Kate Loveland appointed Centre Head

Professor Kate Loveland has been appointed Head of the Centre for Reproductive Health at Hudson Institute of Medical Research starting in January 2017.

An accomplished male reproductive health researcher, Professor Loveland holds an NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship and leads the Testis Development and Male Germ Cell Biology Research Group in the Centre.

“I am excited about being able to support my CRH colleagues because I have such high regard for their research,” Professor Loveland said.

“We have shared ambitions for developing our discipline and using our capacity to make discoveries in reproductive biology that will underpin improvements in human health,” she said.

Professor Loveland is also Head of Postgraduate Studies for the School of Clinical Sciences at Monash University, a role she will continue, with support from Postgraduate Administrator, Mrs Victoria Kasapidis.

“This position allows me to help build links between individuals working in different fields and wholly underpins my ambitions for our Centre, where our work is already integrated with a wide variety of scientific disciplines,” Professor Loveland said.

“Even though we’re all working in reproductive biology, we have our own specialist areas. Most of us collaborate, but I think we can do more of this and do it even better.”

Professor Loveland is a leading researcher in the area of testes development. She is interested in understanding how in utero and early life events impact on the fertility of men, including as a pathway to understanding why the rates of testicular cancer continue to rise internationally and why IVF is needed for conception of 1 in 30 children born in Australia.

“There are a plethora of possible outcomes from the gene reprogramming events that occur normally in the male germline in the testis that may affect male reproductive health and the health of the next generation.”

“My research team is investigating the mechanisms that underpin production of normal healthy sperm, and what happens when that doesn’t go to plan,” she said.

She is addressing this with colleagues in the Centre as the co-leader of an international research training group for PhD students that is joint between Monash University and Justus-Leibig University in Giessen, Germany.

Professor Loveland received her undergraduate and PhD degrees at Duke University in the United States, studying the molecular basis of mammalian fertilization.