July 11, 2013

pre-ESHRE preview briefing

The annual meeting of ESHRE, the world’s leading event in reproductive medicine took place in London from 7-10th July. More than 9000 of the world’s leading experts in reproduction attended and, from a total of 1600 abstracts of new research submitted, ten were selected for the press programme.

As usual, the SMC invited 5 leading fertility experts to come and talk through the most significant, newsworthy studies being presented at the conference.  They gave their expert view on the scientific significance of the studies and placed them in the wider context of research in these areas.  

Studies covered included:

• the motivation of egg donors in European clinics (altruism or money?)
• in utero and early life influences on male fertility
• environmental pollution and its effects on IVF outcome
• IVF for 200 euro per cycle: ready for developing countries?
• cancer risk in IVF children
• the women who store their eggs for fertility preservation
• shift working and its effect on reproductive outcomes
• how obesity affects the implantation ptential of the uterus 

Speakers: 

Dr Allan Pacey, Senior Lecturer in Andrology, University of Sheffield

Mr Stuart Lavery, Consultant Gynaecologist & Director IVF, Hammersmith Hospital

Dr Sue Avery, Director of the Assisted Conception Unit, Birmingham Women’s Healthcare NHS Trust

Dr Anna Veiga, ESHRE Chairman, Director, Stem Cell Bank, Centre of Regenerative Medicine, Barcelona

Prof. Roy Farquharson, EHSRE Executive Committee

After the preview there was a short press briefing on a new study on successful embryo selection for IVF with new genome sequencing technique, presented by Dr Dagan Wells, Senior Scientific Leader, University of Oxford.