Remembering Joshua Abram, Colleague and Friend

We lost a giant this week.

We lost a giant this week. The IVF community is mourning the loss of Joshua Abram, who passed away this week.

I first met Joshua in 2018, when he and his partner, Alan Murray, called to ask my opinion about a startup idea: to apply advanced robotics to cryo-storage for IVF oocytes and embryos. It was a timely idea, catalyzed by a friend’s unfortunate experience having lost cryopreserved oocytes, relying on the traditional manual process, one that the rapid acceleration of egg freezing had made obsolete. New to the field, Joshua was a quick study. He and Alan tackled cryo-storage, then tackled automation for the rest of the embryology laboratory.

A gifted speaker and storyteller, Joshua was also one of the best listeners I've ever encountered, catching detail and nuance, later to return my ideas to me, polished and improved.

There will be many stories traded amongst his friends, colleagues and family, but I can only speak for my own experience: from the time I met Joshua, there was a gravitational pull towards exchanging ideas with him, looking with him into the future, and, above all, feeling privileged to have him as a friend.