Dr. Marc Goldstein founded the Center for Male Reproductive Medicine and Microsurgery at the New York Presbyterian Hospital – Weill Medical College of Cornell University and the Center for Biomedical Research of the Population Council at the campus of the Rockefeller University in 1982. The Center has played an extremely important role in developing various new microsurgical techniques and establishing a higher standard for male infertility treatment worldwide, providing the comprehensive guidelines for management of men with non-obstructive and obstructive azoospermia. In addition, the Center has achieved several of the highest reported success rates in the world for the microsurgical treatment of male infertility. Previously, only men with obstructive azoospermia were possible candidates for treatment, either through microsurgical reconstruction or microsurgical sperm aspiration. Today, however, even men with non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA) are able to achieve pregnancies without having to resort to donor sperm. We have recognized that the key to success in today's microsurgical treatment for male infertility is to maximally invest in our basic microsurgical training and research. The Center has trained over 20 fellows in male reproduction and provides a special training program for international physicians in microsurgery and male reproduction. In addition, hundreds of domestic and international fellows, residents, medical students, visiting fellows and physicians have been trained at our microsurgical program.
In the past five years, few fields in modern medicine have changed as dramatically as reproductive medicine, especially for the treatment of male infertility. With the leadership of its Director, Dr. Goldstein, over 85% of microsurgical procedures for the innovative treatment of male infertility were first developed, or modified and introduced here at Cornell. Our Center was the first to publish a paper showing that varicocele is a risk factor for androgen deficiency and that the microsurgical repair of the varicocele for low testosterone increases testosterone production (Tanrikut C, Goldstein M, Rosoff JS, Lee RK, Nelson CJ, Mulhall JP), Varicocele as a risk factor for androgen deficiency and effect of repair (BJUI. 2011;108:1480-1484).