Isaac E. Sasson, M.D., Ph.D.

About

Every Pennsylvania IVF cycle Shady Grove Fertility reported to SART for the 2023 reporting year carries one physician’s verification signature: Isaac E. Sasson, M.D., Ph.D., named on the registry report as this entity’s Medical Director and listed on the Chesterbrook office page as Medical Director, Pennsylvania. He is also the clinician who signs off on the numbers the state’s patients read - which is a different job description from the one most fertility specialists hold.

The second job title in that sentence is the clinical one. Sasson is a reproductive endocrinologist, board certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology and in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, and a Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. He holds two graduate degrees from Yale - a medical degree and a doctorate in genetics - completed OB/GYN residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital, then took his REI subspecialty training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. His clinical areas as stated by the practice are infertility diagnosis and treatment including IVF, donor egg treatment, endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome and preimplantation genetic diagnosis, with the genetics background used deliberately to push pregnancy and live birth rates.

Teaching runs alongside the practice: he is associate residency director of ob-gyn residents at Lankenau Hospital outside Philadelphia, and he has been an inaugural Physicians Council member for RESOLVE: The Infertility Association (2016). The practice’s patient-education output carries his name too - a Health Central piece on whether uterine fibroids cause infertility (August 14, 2024), CBS News coverage of a Delaware County patient delivering at 43 after medical setbacks (May 9, 2024), a Katie Couric Show segment on male factor infertility, CBS 3 Philadelphia on technology in fertility treatment, and features in Main Line Parent, Philadelphia Life and Suburban Life.

One detail from his own interview is worth more than any ranking. Sasson, the eldest of six children, is open that he and his wife needed treatment to build their family and ended up with twins from an injectable cycle: “At the time, no one told me there was a 20 percent risk of twins.” He says that gap makes him acutely careful with patients who tell him they are fine with twins.

Clinical Expertise

• IVF cycle management: stimulation, monitoring, retrieval and transfer, with the laboratory decisions reviewed in the same practice that does the embryology work
• Preimplantation genetic testing: PGD/PGT sits inside his stated clinical areas, and his doctorate is in genetics - the combination that matters when a couple is deciding whether to biopsy, how to read mosaic results, or how a single-gene risk converts into odds
• Donor egg treatment: listed explicitly among his areas of expertise, relevant for diminished ovarian reserve, advanced reproductive age or genetic risk
• Endometriosis and PCOS: both named in the practice’s description of his clinical focus, the two diagnoses that most often require deciding between surgery, superovulation and IVF, and in which order
• ICSI in unexplained infertility: he is a co-author of a systematic review and meta-analysis in Fertility and Sterility (2013) asking whether ICSI raises fertilization rates and lowers total fertilization failure for well-defined unexplained infertility. The practice does not list ICSI as a standalone specialty of his; this is his research contribution to the question.
• Reproductive genetics research: first-author work on bisphenol A altering DNA methylation and disrupting genomic imprinting in mice (PLoS Genetics, 2013); maternal obesity programming in offspring metabolism and the opioid system (Diabetologia, 2015; Neuropsychopharmacology, 2014); EPAB and oocyte maturation and female fertility in mice (Biochemical Journal, 2012)

Why Choose Dr. Sasson

He reads the primary literature in the field he practices in. The mouse work on imprinting and the clinical meta-analysis on ICSI are the same person’s publication list, which is unusual in a private-practice setting. His older research on whether maternal obesity programs the offspring - before and during pregnancy rather than after - is the evidence base behind the common patient question “will my weight affect the egg, the pregnancy or the child?”

A physician trained in genetics who also runs the reporting. For patients weighing PGT-A against PGT-M, or deciding whether an aneuploid result changes anything at their age, the consultation is coming from someone with a doctorate in the underlying discipline.

He says the twin risk out loud. Most clinics discuss multiples in the abstract. He has a personal stake in the communication failure: nobody told him his own injectable cycle carried roughly a one-in-five chance of twins, and he now flags that to patients who treat twins as an acceptable outcome.

Recognition from multiple lists over a long span. Philadelphia Magazine Top Doctor (2026), Castle Connolly Top Doctor (2025, 2026), Suburban Life Magazine Top Physician (2016, 2024, 2025), Main Line Today Top Doctors (2014-2015, 2023). The practice does not publish the years he obtained his board certifications.

Professional Affiliations

Board certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology and in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility (as labeled on his practice profile), and a Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Member of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Obstetrical Society of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Area Reproductive Endocrine Society. Inaugural Physicians Council member, RESOLVE: The Infertility Association (2016). He is the named verifier of the SART 2023 Final clinic report for this reporting entity, and the CDC’s 2022 ART record for the same program lists the same physician as data verifier - identity confirmation across two registries, not a credential.

Suitable For

• Patients whose case turns on embryo genetics: recurrent loss, a known familial mutation, or an age-related aneuploidy question where the interpretation, not just the biopsy, is the hard part
• Donor egg planning, particularly where genetic risk factors into donor selection
• Endometriosis-related infertility and PCOS, both named clinical areas, where timing of surgery versus IVF drives the plan
• Couples who want a single physician across the cycle, from stimulation through the beta test, in a practice whose embryology, andrology and endocrine labs sit at this Chesterbrook address
• Patients who are “fine with twins” - one of the fewer physicians who will tell you specifically why that answer needs more thought

A note on how his numbers should be read. Sasson is the verifying physician of the SART record for the reporting entity “Shady Grove Fertility | Chesterbrook” (ClinicPKID 2029), which aggregates several Pennsylvania offices rather than this one address - so the 53.8% under-35 figure and the 3,663-cycle volume on the clinic page are Pennsylvania network data, and no Chesterbrook-only outcome split exists in our sources. His own profile lists a single practice location, Chesterbrook, PA. Eggs retrieved in this network are processed at the Chesterbrook laboratory; the practice states surgical procedures happen in-house or at its Towson, MD office, so retrieval and transfer at Chesterbrook are not guaranteed and are worth confirming when you book.