Developed societies around the world are experiencing a number of demographic and societal changes that are influencing the reproductive health of women and increasing the incidence of several health problems. For instance, a delay in childbearing to older maternal ages is resulting in increased infertility, poor pregnancy outcome, fertility treatments, multiple pregnancies, and preterm births.

Our focus is on basic science and clinical research of the reproductive health of women over the life span. Research is targeted at identifying mechanisms involved in the etiology and pathogenesis of infertility, early pregnancy loss, congenital anomalies, pregnancy complications, preterm birth, pre and post-partum depression and reproductive cancers. The goal is to develop improved diagnostic and therapeutic options for these conditions to improve the health of the women, improve pregnancy outcomes and health of babies, and reduce health care costs.

Our overall mission is to provide a rich, diverse, and stimulating scientific environment that will support research of benefit to the reproductive health of women and the well-being of their families; and to establish this as an internationally recognized centre of scientific excellence in women’s reproductive health and clinical developmental biology.

Research activities are conducted in the state of the art wet laboratory buildings of the Child & Family Research Institute and the clinical research areas in the adjacent BC Children's Hospital and the BC Women's Hospital & Health Centre. This creates a unique setting for interdisciplinary women's reproductive health research.