Homage to René Frydman

Each year the festival pays tribute to a great scientist for his career, like Pierre-Gilles de Gennes in 2007, Claude Lorius in 2008, André Brahic in 2009 and Françoise Héritier last year.

Professor René Frydman is a gynecologist, obstetrician, University Professor at the Hospital Antoine Beclere Clamart, a member of Inserm Unit 782 - Endocrinology and genetics of reproduction and development. He wrote L’Art de faire autrement des enfants comme tout le monde, Dieu, la médecine et l’embryon and Lettres à une mère.

"Birth, for me, is always a victory over death"

Man of ideas and commitments, René Frydman will explain during this session his personal ethical and political choices. Driven by a desire for action and a passion for scientific research, he will share his experience, his aspirations, his battles for the mothers and the desire of birth, assisted reproductive and cellular medicine...

An appointment not to miss with the "father" of Amanda, the first French test-tube baby.

"I continue to deliver babies because, for me, there is a real hand to hand. Sometimes it's difficult, it is even physically heavy"

Born to refugee parents in France during the war, René Frydman does medical assistance to Palestinians in Jordan in 1970. Later, he will be a founding member of Médecins sans frontières (Doctors Without Borders). In 1973, he signs the manifesto of the 331 doctors confessing having performed an abortion.

In 1974, he specializes in obstetrics and enters the Clamart Antoine-Béclère hospital. He is part of the team that makes possible the birth in 1982 of the first French test-tube baby, conceived through the technique of in vitro fertilization. He delivers the first baby from a frozen embryo in 1986.

René Frydman has worked, in 2000, on the first birth after preimplantation genetic diagnosis, and in 2003, on the first French baby resulting from in vitro maturation. In February 2011, he delivers the first "medicine" baby in France, or baby of the "double hope" as he calls them.

He defends the research on therapeutic cloning and advocates the repeal of section 25 of the bioethics law which prohibits formation of a human embryo for therapeutic purposes.

 

• you may watch the videos of the discussion (ONLY IN FRENCH) :

1. Amandine, une naissance en douce
2. Amandine, son historique 
3. En France, 1ère Loi bioéthique
4. Avancées scientifiques, avancées éthiques
5. Diagnostic pré-implantatoire
6. Avancées, évolutions de la société
7. Faire et ne pas nuire: les doutes
8. Sur-homme, éviter la dérive
9. Des hommes porteurs ?
10. Cordons à vendre ?