Mission minded: philanthropist Nicole Shanahan

IT is a fact that when it comes to conceiving babies, women have a finite time window, which narrows precipitously when menopause sets in. Depending on one's age this elicits amusement, anxiety or resignation.

Philanthropist Nicole Shanahan refuses to take the facts around menopause and women's reproductive time clock lying down - and women are the better for it. There is, to be sure, little dispute around Reproduction 101, but research into ways to extend women's reproductive capabilities is also far from extensive.

"We never ask men if they believed they were going infertile at 35. We ask this of women because I think women for so long have been held to a standard of struggle. There is a lot of mental burden around losing any physical ability. But when that ability relates to becoming a parent or having your own children... It is a massive mental burden to tell your daughter as she starts to learn about herself in her teens, as she decides what she wants to do and dream of for herself. I want to remove that mental burden.