Amander Clark, Ph.D. 

Amander Clark, Ph.D., studies germline cells, which are the cells that create eggs and sperm. Germline cells are the only cells in the human body capable of passing genes from parent to child. Clark aims to expand the understanding of human germline cell development, which could lead to new methods that identify and treat infertility and shed light on how congenital abnormalities and germ cell tumors develop. 

The Clark lab uses pluripotent stem cells to recreate germline cells in the laboratory. This approach is used to understand how genetic information stored in the germline is protected and preserved during the reproductive life cycle.  Through this work, Clark and her team strive to identify genetic abnormalities that could cause human infertility or diseases of the germline including germ cell tumors in young boys and primary ovarian insufficiency in young girls.  Her research could also lead to the creation of new regenerative approaches through in vitro gametogenesis (IVG), the process of creating eggs and sperm from human induced pluripotent stem cells.

In 2015, Clark and her team developed the first genomics-based method to map the critical stages of human germline cell development. The resulting map allows Clark and other researchers to use genomic technologies to measure the quality of germline cells made from pluripotent stem cells in the laboratory.  Ensuring that the germline cells made in the laboratory are equivalent to cells found in the body is critical for the development of cell therapies that could treat infertility, which affects an estimated 50 million couples worldwide and is common among cancer survivors whose eggs or sperm have been damaged by chemotherapy or radiation treatment.

Clark earned a doctorate degree in cell and developmental biology from the University of Melbourne and completed post-doctoral fellowships at Baylor College of Medicine and the University of California, San Francisco.