John Buster

Who is John Buster?

John Edmond Buster working at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine, directed the research team that performed history's first embryo transfer from one woman to another resulting in a live birth. It was performed at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, reported in July 1983, and led to the announcement of the first human birth February 3, 1984. In the procedure, an embryo that was just beginning to develop was transferred from the woman in whom it had been conceived by artificial insemination to another woman who gave birth to the infant 38 weeks later. The sperm used in the artificial insemination came from the husband of the woman who bore the baby.

This scientific breakthrough established standards and became an agent of change for women suffering from the afflictions of infertility and for women who did not want to pass on genetic disorders to their children. Donor embryo transfer has given women a mechanism to become pregnant and give birth to a child that will contain their husband’s genetic makeup.