M. C. Chang

Chinese-born biologist

• Born: October 10, 1908
• Place of Birth: Taiyuan, Shanxi, China
• Died: June 5, 1991
• Place of Death: Worcester, Massachusetts

As a reproductive biologist specializing in the process of mammalian fertilization, M. C. Chang is best known for his work developing an oral contraceptive, otherwise known as birth-control pills. He also helped pioneer the assisted reproductive technology known as in vitro fertilization.

Areas of achievement: Medicine, science and technology

Early Life

Min Chueh Chang was born in the Shanxi province of China on October 10, 1908. His father was a magistrate, and Chang was afforded a good education as a young man. He attended Tsing Hua University in Peking (now Beijing), where he earned a bachelor’s degree in animal psychology in 1933. After graduation, he remained at the university for several years as a psychology teacher. Chang began undertaking scientific studies, publishing his initial findings on nerve-cell staining.

Five years later, he won a scholastic competition and was awarded a fellowship to continue his scientific work at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. At Edinburgh, Chang focused on agricultural science, but he left due to racial discrimination. In 1939, he enrolled at Cambridge University in England, where he began researching reproductive biology, particularly examining ram spermatozoa. His dissertation was on the hormonal effects of sperm survival. Chang received his PhD in animal breeding from Cambridge in 1941 and remained at the school as a researcher until 1945.

Life’s Work

Confronted with the decision of whether to remain in Europe during World War II, return to China, or move elsewhere, Chang chose to relocate to the United States. In 1945, he was awarded a fellowship by the Worchester Foundation of Experimental Biology in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. He would spend the remainder of his career there.

Chang’s research focused on the process of mammalian fertilization. At the Worchester Foundation, he participated in three groundbreaking projects. The first was co-creating the combined oral contraceptive pill with colleagues Gregory G. Pincus and John Rock. Chang demonstrated the ability of orally administered progesterone to prevent simultaneous pregnancies in rabbits. In addition, when progesterone was combined with other steroids, the pill prevented fertilization and pregnancy altogether. The first oral contraceptive was released by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1960 after successful human clinical trials.

The second area of research Chang is best known for is his work on mammalian sperm’s role in reproduction. He studied the negative effects of cooling temperatures on sperm. His research also contradicted the previously held belief that many sperm had to be present to fertilize an ovum; Chang showed that the requirement for fertilization to occur is capacitation, a process whereby sperm undergo structural changes and mature.

Lastly, Chang was one of the first scientists to report success with mammalian in vitro fertilization (IVF) in rabbits in 1959. He would later refine the process and reproduce it in other animals. In 1964, he became the first scientist to document the process in rodents. This groundbreaking research allowed the technique to be attempted on humans in 1978. By the end of the twentieth century, IVF had become a commonplace procedure used to assist couples with infertility problems.

Throughout his career, Chang received numerous awards and honors. These include the American Fertility Society’s Ortho Medal (1961), the Society for the Study of Reproduction’s Carl G. Hartman Award (1970), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Francis Amory Prize (1975), and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Wippman Scientific Research Award (1987). Chang became a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1990 and published more than 350 scientific articles over the course of his career.

Chang met his wife, Isabelle Chin, at the Yale University library. The couple married in 1951 and had three children. Chang died of heart failure at the age of eighty-two at the Medical Center of Central Massachusetts-Memorial in Worcester. Upon his death in 1991, the Worchester Foundation for Biomedical Research created the M. C. Chang Memorial Fund. An annual lecture at the University of Massachusetts Medical School is named in his honor.

Significance

Although Chang’s research on mammalian reproduction was not originally intended to create the oral contraceptive pill, this discovery revolutionized the world of birth-control options for women worldwide and played an influential role in the sexual revolution. In contrast to preventing pregnancy, Chang’s successful studies in animal in vitro fertilization led to the first “test-tube baby” being born in 1978. Decades later, this technology continues to help couples with infertility problems. In addition, Chang’s work, followed and extended by the many fellows from around the world he personally trained, opened the doors for the creation of other assisted reproductive technologies.

Bibliography

Chang, M. C. “The Meaning of Sperm Capacitation.” Journal of Andrology 5 (Mar.–Apr. 1984): 45–50. Print.

Dhont, Marc. “History of Oral Contraception.” European Journal of Contraception and Reproductive Health Care 15.S2 (2010): S12–S18. Print.

Elder, Kay, and Brian Dale. In-Vitro Fertilization. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011. Print.

Greep, Roy. “Min Chueh Chang: Experimentalist for whom Perseverance, Cognitive Planning, and the Favoring Winds of Chance Paid Off.” Journal of Andrology 13 (Nov.–Dec. 1992): 587–89. Print.

Steptoe, P. C., and R. G. Edwards. “Birth after the Reimplantation of Human Embryo.” Lancet 312.8085 (Aug. 1978): 366. Print.

Yanagimachi, Ryuzo. "M.C. Chang: A Pioneer of Mammalian In Vitro Fertilization." Molecular Reproduction and Development, vol. 83, no. 10, 25 Oct. 2016, doi.org/10.1002/mrd.22749. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.