Suzannah Williams
Awards
2010 Society for Reproduction and Fertility (SRF) New Investigator of the Year
Current Group Members:
- Briet Bjarkadottir (DPhil student)
- Tomi Adeniran (DPhil student)
- Ruth Appeltant (Postdoctoral Fellow)
- Aleona Swegen (Postdoctoral Fellow)
Previous Group Members:
- Eleni Papadopoulou (DPhil student completed 2021)
- Lindsay Baxter (Wellcome Trust Clinical Fellowship)
- Xi Wei (DPhil student completed 2019)
- Charlotte Walker (DPhil student completed 2019)
- Arwa Alageel (DPhil student completed 2019)
- Sairah Sheikh (DPhil student completed 2018)
- Belinda Lo (DPhil student completed 2018)
- Heidy Kaune (DPhil student completed 2015)
- Panayiota Ploutarchou (DPhil student completed 2015)
- Patrica Grasa Molina (Postdoctoral Fellow)
- Anna Deleva (Research Associate)
- Alice Christensen (Medical Student)
- 28 MSc student projects (2010-2021)
- 21 FHS/Undergraduate student projects (2008-2021)
- SRF vacation, ERASMUS, SSM and FY2 projects
Collaborators:
- Prof. Roser Vento-Tormo, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK
- Dr. Rachel Cox (Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, USA) and Prof. Jo Poulton, NDWRH
- Prof. Thomas Hildebrandt, Dr. Frank Göritz, Adj. Prof. Robert Hermes, Dr. Susanne Holtze (Leibniz-IZW, Germany), Prof. Cesare Galli (Avantea srl, Italy)
- Prof. Norah Spears (University of Edinburgh)
- Dr. Mark Fenwick (University of Sheffield, UK
- Prof. Dagan Wells, NDWRH
Academic Groups and Editorial Boards
2019-present
Editorial Board Member Journal Reproduction and Fertility; Lay Editor
2010-2013, 2019-present
Member of Council Society for Reproduction and Fertility;
2021-present
Chair Public Engagement and Membership Committee, Society for Reproduction and Fertility
Opportunities to work with us
We are always keen to hear from people interested in working (Postdocs) or studying with us (e.g., DPhil, MSc by Research, ERASMUS students, summer students). Please contact Prof Williams by email in the first instance.
SRF Vacation Scholarships
SRF funded vacation scholarships are available to enable students to carry out research projects during the summer. Prof. Williams has hosted students before - get in contact to discuss these opportunities (http://srf-reproduction.org/grants-awards/grants/vacation-scholarships/).
Suzannah Williams
BSc Hons, PhD
Associate Professor & Senior Research Fellow
- Principal Investigator
- Research Group Leader
- Lead of Ovarian Research for the Oxford Future Fertility Trust
- Founder and Lead of Rhino Fertility Project
BIOGRAPHY
Prof. Williams (BSc Zoology, University of Aberdeen) completed her PhD at the Royal Veterinary College, London investigating nutritional regulation of ovarian function using sheep as a model for human. This involved collaborative studies in Glasgow, Dublin and Perth, Australia.
Following her PhD, Prof. Williams was awarded a Wain Fellowship and a Lalor Fellowship to work in Perth, Australia for 2 years. Prof. Williams then moved to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York where she generated a mouse model of primary ovarian insuficency.
Prof. Williams established her research group at the University of Oxford investigating the role of the oocyte in regulating fertility and ovarian function supported by a MRC New Investigator grant.
More Recently
Prof. Williams continues to work on primary ovarian insufficiency and understanding ovarian function in health and disease. Prof. Williams has also expanded her programme of research to study human ovarian function and now leads the Oxford Ovarian Fertility Preservation Research Programme developing fertility preservation techniques.
Prof. Williams has also established the Rhino Fertility Project with the aim of developing techniques to culture rhino ovarian tissue and generate follicles and eggs in vitro. This project will develop techniques using Southern White Rhino ovarian tissue with the goal of saving the Northern White Rhino of which there are only two females left.
More information is available about the studies being carried out by the Williams group on the Ovarian Research website.
Funding
Research in the Williams group has been funded by the
- MRC
- Society for Reproduction and Fertility
- Icelandic Cancer Society
- Medical Research Fund
- John Fell OUP
Key publications
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Journal article
Adeniran BV. et al, (2021), Hum Reprod
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Journal article
BJARKADOTTIR B. et al, (2021), Reproduction and Fertility
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Journal article
Lo BKM. et al, (2019), Reproduction, 157, 135 - 148
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Journal article
Burkhardt S. et al, (2016), Current Biology, 26, 678 - 685
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Journal article
Horan CJ. and Williams SA., (2017), Reproduction, 154, R23 - R35
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Journal article
Grasa P. et al, (2016), Reproduction, 152, 591 - 601
Recent publications
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Journal article
Hutchinson AM. et al, (2024), Development, 151
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Journal article
Wei X. et al, (2024), Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, 12
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Journal article
Cowl VB. et al, (2023), Annu Rev Anim Biosci
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Journal article
Appeltant R. et al, (2023), Commun Biol, 6
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Journal article
Swegen A. et al, (2023), Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society
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Journal article
Fraire-Zamora JJ. et al, (2023), Human reproduction (Oxford, England)
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Journal article
Sheikh S. et al, (2023), Front Cell Dev Biol, 11
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Journal article
Kaune H. et al, (2022), Reprod Fertil
Origins
Podcast exploring the subject of origins is explored - from human fertilisation to the Big Bang. Includes parts 1, 2 and 3.