Karen Sermon trained as an MD and received her PhD in medical sciences at the VUB. As an FWO postdoctoral fellow her main interest was on preimplantation genetic diagnosis for monogenic diseases, which she helped develop at the UZ Brussel. Later her interests have veered towards human embryonic stem cells and especially those stem cells that carry a monogenic disease and can be used as disease models. Her group have contributed to the stem cell field with several papers in high impact factor journals. Recently, she also researched the origin of chromosomal abnormalities in IVF embryos, resulting in several papers on the topic. She was also appointed coordinator of the ESTEEM study by ESHRE. She is currently the chair-elect of ESHRE.