Instructor Bio

Dr. R. Peter Elsden is a veterinarian with a Master's Degree in reproductive physiology. He was in mixed practice for nine years, worked for a large cattle company for two years and was an associate professor at Colorado State University for nine years. He has been involved in teaching, research and service in the embryo transfer industry for over 30 years.

While at Colorado State University, Dr. Elsden was Associate Professor on the staff of the Veterinary Teaching Hospital in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, teaching reproductive physiology and diseases to veterinary students. He was also Director of the Animal Reproduction Laboratory's Embryo Transfer Unit, which included commercial, teaching and research interests.

Dr. Elsden developed techniques to nonsurgically recover and transfer embryos to amplify the reproductive potential of selected donors of high genetic value and to circumvent some kinds of infertility. In addition, his group developed a practical technique of microsurgically dividing bovine and equine embryos to produce identical twins which are useful for research and beneficial to the cattle and equine industries.

Dr. Elsden has lectured overseas on many occasions in his field and organized embryo transfer programs in many countries. Over the last several years he has given numerous courses on the techniques of embryo transfer to farmers, ranchers, and veterinarians. Dr. Elsden consults for the United States Department of Agriculture, The Food and Agriculture Organization of The United Nations, Winthrop International (Rockefeller), several foreign governments, and many embryo transfer groups. He has over fifty scientific articles in referred journals and numerous publications in popular cattle magazines. He is a past President of The International Embryo Transfer Society and a past director of The American Embryo Transfer Association. He was nominated a member of the Spanish Academy of Sciences for Veterinarians, and was awarded the Oliver P. Pennock Distinguished Service Award for meritorious teaching and research at Colorado State University.

“Even after all these years of experience in development of techniques and applying them to commercial interests it is still a great feeling of satisfaction to observe a dish of embryos and 60 days later to feel the pregnancies, especially when they are your own animals.”
Dr. Peter Elsden