Landrum Shettles
| Landrum Brewer Shettles | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born |
November 21, 1909 Pontotoc, Mississippi |
| Died |
February 6, 2003 (aged 93) St. Petersburg, Florida |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Occupation | Biologist |
| Known for | In vitro fertilization |
| Spouse(s) | Priscilla Elinor Schmidt (divorced) |
Landrum Brewer Shettles (November 21, 1909 – February 6, 2003) was a pioneer in in vitro fertilization.[1]
Biography
He was born on November 21, 1909 in Pontotoc, Mississippi. He graduated from Mississippi College in 1933. He was awarded a Ph.D. in biology and an M.D. from Johns Hopkins University. He served in the United States Army Medical Corps from 1944 to 1946.[1]
In 1951, he reproduced the experience of John Rock and Miriam Menkin artificially fertilizing eggs. In 1954, he received the annual Markle Prize, from Columbia University.[2]
Shettles described a method to determined the sex of a baby. Using his "Shettles Method" couples who wanted to have a male baby should time intercourse as close as possible to ovulation to allow the faster y-bearing sperm to reach the egg first.
In 1973, he was involved with an IVF controversy, the Del-Zio case, at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York.[3] After he resigned from the hospital, he moved to Vermont where he worked at Gifford Medical Center, Randolph, Vermont on cloning. He then moved to Las Vegas to resume work on cloning. He retired from Sunrise Hospital, Las Vegas, Nevada in 2000 and moved to Florida.[1][3]
He died on February 6, 2003 in St. Petersburg, Florida.[1]
Works
- Landrum B. Shettles; David M. Rorvik (23 March 2011). How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby: Fully revised and updated. Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-78617-3.
- Ovum Humanum, Hafner Pub. Co., 1960
- Roberts Rugh, Landrum B. Shettles, Richard Einhorn, From Conception to Birth: The Drama of Life's Beginnings, Harper Row, 1971
See also
References
- 1 2 3 4 Stuart Lavietes (February 16, 2003). "Dr. L. B. Shettles, 93, Pioneer in Human Fertility". New York Times. Retrieved 2014-12-26.
Dr. Landrum B. Shettles, an early developer of in vitro fertilization techniques who gained national attention as the author of How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby and as a central figure in a lawsuit over efforts to produce the first test tube baby, died on Feb. 6 in St. Petersburg, Fla. He was 93. ...
- ↑ "Landrum Shettles . Test Tube Babies. WGBH American Experience | PBS". pbs.org. Retrieved 2014-03-11.
- 1 2 Robin Marantz Henig (December 28, 2003). "The Lives They Lived: Landrum Shettles". The New York Times.