Q&A: Oncofertility innovator awarded National Medal of Science
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- Teresa K. Woodruff, PhD, was one of 14 recipients of the National Medal of Science in 2025.
- She is credited with creating the field of oncofertility, which focuses on preserving fertility during cancer treatment.
Few researchers can claim to be a pioneer in their field quite like Teresa K. Woodruff, PhD.
While serving as the basic science director at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, Woodruff recognized there was little attention being paid to the reproductive future of girls and young women who had cancer.
“In that role, I learned of a boy with cancer who was being brought down from our pediatric hospital to bank sperm because his mother asked for it,” Woodruff, who currently serves as president emerita of Michigan State University and an MSU Research Foundation Professor in obstetrics, gynecology, reproductive biology and biomedical engineering, told Healio. “I hadn’t heard of it, nobody had heard of it, because it just wasn’t done.
“I asked, ‘What do we do for young women,’” Woodruff said. “I was told they need to focus on their cancer and get better from that disease. It was that thunderbolt moment that I thought my research can have something to do with the options that these cancer patients might have.”
Woodruff came up with the word oncofertility to describe a new medical field dedicated toward preserving fertility for a young person undergoing cancer treatment. Shortly after inventing the term, Woodruff founded the Oncofertility Consortium, which consists of a group of health care professionals and researchers who are focused on exploring and solving the many issues surrounding fertility during cancer treatment.
Woodruff’s work in oncofertility is just one reason she received an illustrious honor in January. Former President Joe Biden named Woodruff as one of 14 recipients of the National Medal of Science, an honor granted to those who make outstanding contributions to science in service of the U.S.
Healio spoke with Woodruff about her career accomplishments, her tenure as president of the Endocrine Society in 2013-2014 and what the National Medal of Science means to her.
Healio: What inspired you to pursue a career in the sciences, medicine and reproductive health?
Woodruff: I was inspired in the sciences by my mother when I was in third grade. She was teaching a summer class in our area on volcano science. It inspired me to want to be a first grade teacher.
I went to college to major in elementary education. There I found the sciences and my love of research. One of my professors asked me if I’d be interested in doing research. He took me to California Institute of Technology in 1984. I really got the bug for science then, and later for reproductive science.
I decided I was going to pursue a PhD when I was doing rotations in laboratories at Northwestern University. There was a professor named Kelly Mayo, PhD, and he was researching molecular endocrinology, the genes that control reproductive cycles. I joined his lab and really haven’t turned back since.
Healio: Why did you decide to create the Oncofertility Consortium?
Woodruff: To get from bench to bedside and to have a profound effect on patients, you have to go around the entire circumference of the problem. A patient isn’t going to be able to access the protocols if an oncologist isn’t talking to an in vitro fertilization doctor, that patient is not going to be able to opt in if there’s no insurance coverage, a doctor’s not going to offer it if there’s no reimbursement and if a parent or a partner can’t understand what’s happening, they’re going to say, “Let’s just focus on cancer.”
What the consortium said is that we must have a continuum of care from the bench to bedside to babies. We’ve got to bring in the students, the nurses, patients and we have to bring in oncology. We’ve got to bring in social science, ethics and religion. And we have to work toward insurance and reimbursement availability.
The consortium was meant to be the hub to bring everybody together around this new idea and new word of oncofertility. It was really a consequence of saying, “We’re all in this at the beginning.” That is why it worked, because it wasn’t a few people building it. We were all building it.
Healio: Is there any achievement in your career that you are most proud of and why?
Woodruff: The first live birth of mice from the oocyte outside the body was named the Discovery of the Decade [by Nature Medicine]. That discovery was done with Lonnie Shea, PhD, who is at University of Michigan. He was my great collaborator on many of our discoveries.
That discovery is only closely first to the [discovery of] zinc spark. Zinc spark is this magnificent release of zinc from the oocyte at the time of fertilization. Nobody even knew to look for zinc. We discovered this massive upregulation of zinc, and then the release of it at fertilization. That was done with my collaborator, Tom O’Halloran, PhD. Those were two monumental discoveries in the field of reproductive science.
Healio: What do you like most about being a member of the Endocrine Society? What was your experience like when you served as president at the Endocrine Society?
Woodruff: I gave my first scientific talk at the Endocrine Society meeting in New Orleans in 1988. It’s a place where I have grown up as a scientist and as a scholar. I’ve presented my work and eventually went through a lot of the leadership roles there.
The organization is one that focuses on the pipeline of development of people. The society develops people to enable them to do their best work in the clinic or at the bench. Many societies say they are just a clinical society or a basic science society. The Endocrine Society is all of us. I think that’s what really makes it a powerful voice for endocrinology in the nation.
[When I was president], there were so many milestones. We bought a building in downtown Washington, D.C. Our CEO, Scott Hunt, decided to retire, so we had to do a CEO search for the first time in 25 years. We were also in the middle of a rebranding of the organization. Those were three of the real highlights that I think have resonated and continued to be impactful over time.
Healio: When did you decide to apply for a position at Michigan State and what attracted you to the university?
Woodruff: Michigan State is a great land grant institution that has this real breadth going from the land, water and animal science all the way to human medicine and to the stars. One of the key discoveries at Michigan State was of cisplatin, the cancer drug that has saved so many lives. Michigan State had always been on my radar for that discovery, because oncofertility was providing the fertility to those people whose lives had been saved by that drug.
Healio: What did receiving the National Medal of Science mean to you?
Woodruff: I was so humbled. It was such a humbling call when I first learned of it. This is an award for the folks in the lab, my collaborators like Lonnie and Tom, for my students, and for the field. I’m so pleased that I had the opportunity to be a small part of what’s become a true field of medicine that is making a difference in patients’ lives all around the globe.
References:
Clark D. National Medal of Science awarded to oncofertility innovator, MSU Research Foundation Professor Teresa Woodruff. MSU Today. https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2025/national-medal-of-science-awarded-to-tkw. Published Jan. 6, 2025. Accessed Jan. 21, 2025.
President Biden honors nation’s leading scientists, technologists and innovators. Whitehouse.gov. Published Jan. 3, 2025.
Collapse
Healio Interviews
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts