She has a special interest in Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and age-related infertility and is an advocate of ‘social egg freezing’ to give older women the chance of genetic motherhood.
She led the unit that was the first UK fertility clinic to achieve live births from the mothers’ own eggs, following egg freezing and the subsequent thaw, fertilisation and transfer.
Gillian has published widely on all aspects of fertility, and lectures and broadcasts on ethical and social issues in reproductive medicine.
Gillian was a late recruit to medicine having originally read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University and then worked in the Cabinet Office as a government statistician. She qualified in medicine from Oxford in 1986 and subsequently trained in reproductive medicine and IVF at the John Radcliffe Hospital.
She served as the vice-chair of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Ethics Committee and is a spokesperson on ethics for the British Fertility Society. She became a special advisor to the government Select Committee on Science and Technology which undertook a review of the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act.