LUMEN Spring 2022 - Flipbook - Page 29
MEDICINE
Baby
making
How Christine Kirby
became a pioneer
in fertility treatment
and created
thousands of families
STORY BY
RACHAEL NIGHTINGALE
T
he first time
Dr Christine Kirby saw
her granddaughter Aria
was through a microscope
in a lab. For the woman whose life’s
work is creating families - bringing
thousands of babies into the world
over the past 40 years - nothing had
been harder than trying to help her
only daughter Katie become a
mum herself.
Christine was closely involved in
Katie's IVF treatment, along with her
colleagues at Repromed, the fertility
clinic she co-founded as a University
of Adelaide company in 1987. She
was part of a management buy-out
of Repromed in 2006, and went into
partnership with a private equity
firm in 2008. In 2014, Repromed
was floated on the ASX.
“It was really hard, to know what
I knew but to sit with Katie and
at times keep my mouth shut
knowing all the things that could
potentially go wrong in her cycle,”
said Christine.
ALUMNI MAGAZINE - SPRING 2022
27
