About Us

The Special Program of Assisted Reproduction (SPAR) is designed to prevent infection in wives, gestational carriers, and babies during fertility procedures using sperm from men who are living with a sexually transmitted disease, such as HIV.

The program is run by the Bedford Research Foundation, a not for profit Massachusetts public charity.

Program Director

Ann A. Kiessling, PhD

Dr. Ann A. Kiessling is Director of the Bedford Research Foundation. She holds bachelor’s degrees in Nursing and Chemistry, a master’s degree in Organic Chemistry and a doctorate in Biochemistry/Biophysics from Oregon State University. She is a world leading expert in early reproductive biology and infectious disease, and has received multiple awards for her work. In 2012, Dr. Kiessling retired from directing the Laboratory of Reproductive Biology at Harvard to further pursue the Foundation’s parthenogenesis research, and to spend more time supporting SPAR.

Dr. Kiessling is a well-published author and world-renowned speaker. Her writings can be found in publications such as Nature, Lancet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and Connecticut Law Review, and she has been the focus of articles in The Boston Globe and Newsweek.

In 2009, Dr. Kiessling was the first female recipient of the Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award for Biotechnology and Medicine, recognizing significant contributions to the field of assisted human reproduction. And in 2014, Dr. Kiessling gave the Oregon State University Commencement Address.

Dr. Kiessling is the proud mother of three daughters and a son.

SPAR History

In the mid-1970s, Nobel Laureate, Dr. Howard Temin, postulated that retroviruses (HIV is a retrovirus) have such an unusal and unique lifecycle that they must have a more fundamental role in biology than their niche understanding at the time. Taken with this idea, Dr. Kiessling began studies of mouse embryos to test Dr. Temin’s hypothesis. By the early 1980s, she had developed laboratory tests to detect reverse transcriptase activity (the protein used by retroviruses to reproduce) in human cells. At that moment, the AIDS epidemic was exploding, and she was approached by researchers with an urgent need to understand the nature of HIV in semen.

In 1983, Kiessling published the first paper documenting the presence of HIV in semen, and her following work confirmed that HIV was not present in the sperm themselves.

Simultaneously, Dr. Kiessling’s interest in studying eggs and early cleaving embryos led her to create the first laboratory for Human In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) in Oregon (at OHSU). By 1985, Kiessling was recruited to Harvard Medical School, where she continued her work in both reproductive biology and virology.

Then, in 1989, Kiessling wrote a controversial letter to the editor in Fertility and Sterility titled, “Retroviruses and Reproduction” (51: 756-758). The letter detailed that the increasing number of serodiscordant couples (a couple in which one partner is HIV-positive and one partner is HIV-negative) of childbearing age would need support from the medical and scientific community as they sought to safely have families. The letter garnered a great deal of attention – both positive and negative – and still, no fertility programs were established to support these couples.

By 1994, Dr. Kiessling was receiving a regular stream of phone calls and letters from both couples and physicians looking for any help or information on how to guide these couples. Kiessling attempted several times to establish an IVF program for HIV infected couples at existing hospitals and fertility centers, but the stigma and pervailing fear of HIV / AIDS was insurmountable. No hospital or clinic would help these couples.

In 1996, with the financial support of a group of serodiscordant couples, Dr. Kiessling established the Assisted Reproduction Foundation. She partnered with several local doctors and infertility specialists who were willing to donate their time and risk the rebuke of their hospitals, to help create SPAR (the Special Program of Assisted Reproduction). The original clinical laboratory was established in 1998 in Davis Square, Somerville, Massachusetts (now headquartered in Bedford, MA). The first baby, Baby Ryan was born in 1999, more details about the story of his conception and the amazing hurtles overcome by his parents and the research team are told in the award winning radio story by Stephen Smith.

SPAR in the Media