Ann Kiessling

Ann Kiessling (born 29 March 1942) is an American reproductive biologist and a researcher in human parthenogenetic stem cell research at the Bedford Research Foundation, and was an associate professor in teaching hospitals of Harvard Medical School from 1985 until 2012. Born Ann Anderson in Baker City, Oregon, she earned bachelor's degrees in nursing and in chemistry, a master's degree in organic chemistry at Central Washington University, and in 1971 a Ph.D. in biochemistry and biophysics at Oregon State University. She is noted for discovering reverse transcriptase activity in normal human cells, which pioneered the importance of naturally occurring retrovirus sequences in human genes. This led her to study eggs and early embryos, to research on semen transmission of HIV, and to the creation of the first laboratory for human in vitro fertilization in Oregon in the early 1980s.