Luigi Mastroianni

Luigi Mastroianni (born 1925 in New Haven , Connecticut - † November 25, 2008 ) was an American doctor ( gynecologist )

Mastroianni was the son of a gynecologist couple and studied zoology at Yale University (bachelor's degree in 1946) and medicine at Boston University (MD 1950). He completed his residency in gynecology at the Metropolitan Hospital in New York City and then conducted research at Harvard Medical School and the Free Hospital for Woman in Boston. He was then from 1961 five years Assistant Professor at Yale University and then Professor of Gynecology at the University of California, Los Angeles , and Head of Gynecology at Harbor Hospital in Los Angeles . From 1965 he was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania , most recently as William Goodell Professor Emeritus.

He worked with one of the inventors of the birth control pill, John Rock , at the Free Hospital of Woman in Brookline, Massachusetts in the 1950s and later on lowering the levels of estrogen in birth control pills. In the 1960s he undertook fundamental investigations into the physiological processes in fallopian tubes using rabbits and rhesus monkeys as test animals. He also conducted research on artificial insemination in vitro early in the 1970s . In 1983 he performed the first human artificial insemination in the Philadelphia area.

In 1989 he received the König Faisal Prize for Medicine with Robert G. Edwards for pioneering work on artificial insemination. In 1993 he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences .

Web links

• Obituary in Yale
• Obituary to the American Physiological Society
• Interview with Coutifaris