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About Teresa Erb
Most physicians who run donor egg programs inherited them. Teresa Erb built one. As director of third-party reproduction at a Pittsburgh private practice she wrote the FDA standard operating procedures, sat through the FDA inspections that enforce them, chose and screened donors, set the stimulation protocols for donors and the preparation protocols for recipients, and created the donor oocyte bank the program ran on. That is the administrative half of IVF, and few clinicians have done it end to end.
The other half is bench work. During her reproductive endocrinology and infertility fellowship at Magee-Women’s Hospital of UPMC she researched human embryonic stem cell development toward trophectoderm — the early placenta — work for which she holds two patents, presented at national meetings and published in peer-reviewed journals. She has said that background is what taught her the dynamics of egg maturation, fertilization and embryo development that she now applies in clinic.
She completed her medical degree at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and her OB/GYN residency at Magee-Women’s Hospital of UPMC, where she was also a clinical instructor in the subspecialties division in 2006-2007 before finishing her REI fellowship at the same hospital. She is board-certified in both Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility. Her FIRM practice covers the Baptist Downtown and Baptist South sites in Jacksonville and the Daytona Beach clinic.
Clinical Expertise
- Donor egg and donor embryo programs — donor selection and screening, synchronization of donor and recipient cycles, and the regulatory record-keeping a gamete bank requires.
- Fertility preservation in cancer patients — she wrote two IRB-approved protocols covering ovarian and testicular cryopreservation for men, women and children facing treatment, and for patients before bone marrow transplantation.
- IVF and assisted reproductive technology — diagnosis and treatment of infertility, stimulation, retrieval, laboratory embryology and transfer.
- Embryo biology — her trophectoderm research is the layer of knowledge that informs how an embryology lab is run and how embryo development is interpreted during a cycle.
Why Choose Dr. Erb
Two patents in the field she practises. Patentable work on stem cell development to the early placenta is a specific, checkable credential rather than a general research claim, and it sits directly under the IVF lab work she now oversees clinically.
She has carried a donor program through FDA inspection. Writing the SOPs and passing the inspections that test them is different from following a compliance manual someone else wrote — which matters most to patients using donor gametes, where the regulatory file is part of the treatment.
She has a standing in fertility preservation for oncology patients. Co-chairing the committee that produced two institutional protocols, and lecturing on preserving fertility at UPMC Shadyside Hospital Cancer Center, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and the third annual Hereditary Cancer Conference, is a record of doing this work before it became a routine conversation.
She teaches. She trained medical endocrinology fellows and OB/GYN residents in IVF during her Pittsburgh years and is a contributing author in medical textbooks, with peer-reviewed publications and national and international presentations.
Professional Affiliations
Erb is a member of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and is certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Obstetrics and Gynecology and in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility. Her training and early teaching were at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Magee-Women’s Hospital of UPMC. During fellowship she also served on an ethics committee for women and couples undergoing reproductive care from 2007 to 2010.
Suitable For
Patients using donor eggs or donor embryos. Her program-building experience covers the screening, matching and regulatory steps that decide how a donor cycle runs.
Patients facing chemotherapy, radiation or surgery that threatens fertility. She wrote institutional protocols for ovarian and testicular cryopreservation, including for children, which is the narrowest version of this referral and the one hardest to arrange in a hurry.
Anyone who wants the laboratory side of IVF explained. Her research background is in embryo and placental development, so questions about why one embryo transfers and another does not get answered from the bench rather than from a brochure.
IVF patients at FIRM’s Jacksonville and Daytona Beach clinics.