Severino Antinori

Severino Antinori (born c. 1945, Teramo, Italy) is an Italian gynecologist and embryologist who championed the use of in vitro fertilization (IVF) techniques to aid older women in becoming pregnant. He generated significant controversy by devising human cloning procedures as another avenue in treating infertility.

Antinori studied medicine at the University of Rome, graduating in 1972, and then continued to work at the university, specializing in gastroenterology, in 1973–74. Later in the 1970s he shifted his specialty to obstetrics and gynecology, working at various hospitals and institutions in Italy and eventually establishing his own clinic in Rome. In 1987 Antinori established the International Associated Research Institute for Human Reproduction (RAPRUI) in Rome, where he experimented with the use of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), a process whereby sperm was directly injected into an egg in an effort to circumvent some causes of infertility. In 1989 he announced the first successful implantation of an egg fertilized using IVF into a menopausal patient.

Antinori first gained international attention in 1993, when a 59-year-old British woman gave birth to twins as a result of treatment in his fertility clinic; eggs from a young Italian woman had been donated, fertilized with sperm from the British woman’s husband, and then implanted. A year later, after undergoing the same procedure, a 62-year-old Italian woman gave birth to a son; she was believed at the time to be the oldest woman ever to have given birth. In 2000 Antinori experimented with growing immature human sperm cells from infertile patients to maturity by injecting them into mouse testes.

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In January 2001 Antinori announced that he planned to begin work on a project to clone humans and that he had already found 10 couples who were willing to participate. His partner was American fertility specialist Panayiotis Zavos, who claimed that he and Antinori expected to produce a viable human embryo within 18 months. In order to produce the clones, Antinori and Zavos planned to impregnate women with embryos made with the DNA of the child’s intended father. The children would, therefore, be the genetic twins of their fathers, which would thus allow infertile men to pass their genes to the next generation. However, Antinori claimed that the babies would have a small amount of the DNA of their mothers and consequently would not be exact clones.

Many throughout the world quickly expressed strong opposition to the project. Some objected on moral and religious grounds, whereas others cited the many miscarriages, stillbirths, and abnormal offspring that had resulted from efforts to clone large mammals. In regard to the second criticism, Antinori and Zavos claimed that their long experience with IVF and other types of assisted pregnancy would increase their chances for success. However, by 2002 the partnership between Antinori and Zavos had dissolved, creating ambiguity as to the fate of the project. In 2008 Antinori announced that three pregnancies had resulted from the project and that the children were healthy. Despite this claim, he produced no proof, citing the privacy of the families involved.

In 2002 Antinori founded the World Association of Reproductive Medicine (WARM) in Rome, with the goal of creating international collaboration between scientists studying reproductive health.