Fertility 2024
SRF Council at Fertility 2024
Fertility 2024 Review
Fertility 2024 saw us back in chilly but beautiful Edinburgh. The meeting was an outstanding success delivering an integrated and interesting programme with excellent scientific and clinical content from all three societies – ARCS, BFS and SRF. The numbers equalled our last record conference attendance at Fertility 2020 (also in Edinburgh) – with 1048 attendees of which 842 were paying delegates, speakers, or committee guests with a further 206 exhibitors! It was also our most successful event in terms of commercial sales, and many thanks goes to our new conference organisers Seren Events for their efforts in this area.
As ever, we started with the SRF Satellite Day and the return of the popular SRF Early Career Research Symposium sponsored by Reproduction and Fertility. The standard of research and presentations from our SRF undergraduates and masters’ students, was exceptional. Congratulations to the winner: Jodie Hoggar (University of Edinburgh) for her study on “The effect of chemotherapeutics on the fetal testis.” This was followed up by the SRF PhD Prize Session and we had excellent presentations from six speakers from the UK, Spain and France. Congratulations to our very worthy winner, Nathan J Parks (University of Central Lancashire) for his work on “Investigating the enzymatic activity of endometrial DPPIV at implantation using prescribed inhibitors in an in-vitro co-culture model.” Special mention must also go to the PhD Highly Commended Runner-Up: Rui Wang (King’s College London) for her study “Characterizing the G-protein activities of the membrane Androgen Receptor, ZIP9”. The SRF Post-doctoral prize session, held the next day, saw six superb presentations with the winning prize awarded to Roberta Migale (Francis Crick Institute) for her presentation on “FOXL2 interaction with different binding partners regulates the dynamics of granulosa cell differentiation across ovarian development”. The Post-Doc Highly Commended Runner-up was awarded to Phoebe Kirkwood (University of Edinburgh) for her investigation on “Ccr2-mediated monocyte recruitment is required for non-fibrotic endometrial repair during experimentally induced menstruation”.
Congratulations go to the SRF Poster Winner: Jonas Zaugg (University of Cambridge) on “ Pre-pregnancy obesity disturbs placental iron handling in association with reduced placental iron accumulation and reduced fetal growth” and the Poster Joint Runners Up: Zoe Johnston (University of Dundee) and Evie Gruszyk (University of Sheffield). We commend all our undergraduate, post-graduate, PhD students and post-doctoral speakers: the future of reproductive science is safe in your hands!
Our Satellite Day also allows us to showcase our links with SSR and SRB as our USA and Australia/New Zealand sister Societies, via our annual exchange prize lectures. We all very much enjoyed the award-winning lectures from Dr Azelle Howdon (Monash IVF Group Australia) as the SRF/SRB David Healy Post-doc Exchange lecturer; Dr Ahmed Balboula (University of Missouri Columbia, USA) as the SSR/SRF Virenda Mahesh New Investigator lecturer and our own SRF/SSR New Investigator winner Dr Binyam Mogessie (Yale University, US). The excellent Reproduction Journal Prize Lecture was delivered by Yu-Ying Chen (NIEHS, USA) for her paper on “Single-cell transcriptomics of staged oocytes and somatic cells reveal novel regulators of follicle activation”.
As befitting our highest accolade, the awarding of The Marshall Medal was moved to the end of the Satellite Day to give it the space and time it deserved. Our extremely worthy winner was Professor Richard Anderson (University of Edinburgh) for his decade’s long contribution to male and female reproductive science and health. The prestigious SRF Anne McLaren Distinguished Scientist lecture was delivered by the estimable Professor Helen Picton (Leeds University).
Fertility 2024 had everything to offer, from the hugely popular plenary by Prof Andrew Pask on “De-extinction of the Tasmanian Tiger” to an honest insight into the UK’s first uterine transplant by Mr Richard Smith. Our congratulations go out to the recipients of the two other eponymous award lectures: the ARCS Bob Edwards Memorial Lecture delivered by Professor Roger Sturmey (Embryology research: looking backwards to move forwards) and the BFS Patrick Steptoe Lecture delivered by Professor Peter Schlegel (Evolution of treatment of severe male subfertility).
The update and short paper sessions encompassed everything from Environmental Extremes and their Impacts on Reproduction to Reproduction in Space – taking us from the Arctic to outer space! We also saw the welcome return on attended poster sessions projected on screens and roll out of the new app, with feedback from our delegates highlighting it’s popularity and features. For those who had registered for the conference, recordings of the plenary and other lectures are now available on the app, so you can catch up on any that you may have missed.
As ever the debate proved hugely popular with Professor Yin Cheong successfully swinging the audience against the motion on “The house believes that AI and Robots are the future of ART” by it’s conclusion! Never has a closing plenary got everyone on their feet stretching and dancing as that delivered by Helga Sol Ólafsdóttir (Only Human – Rethinking Patient Care).
The SRF Satellite Day and Fertility conference also present a golden opportunity to network and catch up with friends and colleagues. We hugely enjoyed our SRF Social at All Bar One and our conference dinner in Edinburgh wouldn’t be complete without the raucous and popular Ceilidh!!
Finally, I must extend huge thanks to our new conference organisers Seren Events and to our SRF Secretariat Conference Collective for their hard work and dedication in making these events so successful, along with the joint programme committee from all three societies.
We look forward to seeing you all at the ACC, Liverpool for Fertility 2024 (8-11 January 2025)
With warm wishes,
Dr Suman Rice (Chair SRF)
SRF Awards presented at Fertility 2024
Reproduction Prize
