Preliminary Scientific Programme

European Society for Reproductive Immunology Annual Meeting
Magdalen College, Oxford, UK
September 21st -24th 2015


Monday 21st September
15.00 – 16.30 Registration (Old Law Library)
16.30 – 17.30 Opening Lecture (The Grove Auditorium)
  Emeritus Professor Leslie Brent, London, UK
  “P.B. Medawar’s Legacy”
18.00 – 20.00 Welcome Reception at the Pitt Rivers Museum
   
Tuesday 22nd September
8.00 – 9.00 Registration (The Grove Auditorium)
Session 1  Immunological tolerance in pregnancy 
  Chair Professor Julia Szekeres Bartho
9.00 – 9.30 Professor Fiona Powrie, University of Oxford, UK
  “The Biology of Regulatory T cells”
9.30 – 10.00 Professor David Klatzmann, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France
  “Regulatory T cells orchestrate the tolerant uterine environment of pregnancy" 
10.00 – 10.15 F. Idali et al, Avicenna Research Institute, ACECR, Tehran, Iran
  In vitro generated CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells efficiently prevented fetal rejection in abortion-prone mice
10.15 – 10.30 A. Diemert, et al, Department of Obstetrics and Fetal Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg, Germany
  Fetal thymus size in human pregnancies reveals inverse association with regulatory T cell frequencies in cord blood
10.30 – 11.00 Coffee
Session 2 Decidual NK Cell Immunology 
  Chair Professor Udo Jeschke
11.00 - 11.30 Dr Judith Cartwright, St George’s Hospital, University of London, UK
  “NK cells in pregnancies with impaired vascular remodelling”. 
11.30 – 12.00 Dr Francesco Colucci, University of Cambridge, UK
  “NK cells at the maternal-fetal interface”. 
12.00 – 12.15 G. M. Johnsen et al, Department of Obstetrics and Department of Gynaecology, Oslo University Hospital, Norway.
  Killer immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRS) on 3rd trimester decidual natural killer cells
12.15 – 12.30 C. Mpalamoti et al, Nutrition Department, Helena Venizelou Hospital, Athens, Greece
  The effect of a fatty acid-based diet on NK cells of sub-fertile women
12.30 – 13.30 Lunch (Dining Hall)
13.30 - 14.30 POSTER SESSION 1 (The Old Law Library/Lecture Room A)
Session 3 Maternal Immunomodulation
  Chair Professor Laszlo Szereday
14.30 – 15.00 Professor Paul Moss, University of Birmingham, UK
  “Maternal T cell responses in pregnancy”. 
15.00 – 15.30 Dr Tamara Tilburgs, Harvard University, USA
  “CD8+ve effector T cells at the fetal-maternal interface, balancing fetal tolerance and antiviral immunity”. 
15.30 – 15.45 R. Lindau et al, Clinical Immunology, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
  IL-34 at the human fetal-maternal interface
15:45 – 16:00 H. Motak-Pochrzęst et al, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, District Hospital Strzelce Opolskie, Strzelce Opolskie, Poland
  Paternal lymphocyte immunization in women with recurrent embryo implantation failures and/or recurrent miscarriages after IVF.
16:00 – 16.30 tea
Session 4 Immunology of pre-eclampsia – Sponsored by Alere
  Chair Professor Gavin Sacks 
16.30 – 17:00 Dr Marijke Faas, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
  “Monocytes in pregnancy and preeclampsia”. 
17.00 -17.45 Professor Chris Redman, University of Oxford, UK
  “The Immunology of Pre-eclampsia”
   
19.00 – 21.30 Dinner Queen’s College Dining Hall 
   
Wednesday 23rd September
Session 5  Gametes and Embryos
  Chair Professor Zdenka Ulcova-Gallova
9.00 – 9:30 Professor Andreas Meinhardt, Justus Liebeg University, Giessen, Germany
  “Inflammation and infection in the male reproductive tract”. 
9:30 – 10:00 Professor Yuan Qing Yao, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China
  “Role of embryo and trophoblast derived HLA-G in signalling to the mother”. 
10:00 – 10:30 Coffee
Session 6 Young Investigator Awards
  Chair Professor Youla Varla-Leftherioti  
Basic Science Research
10:30 – 10:45 I.A. Stelzeral et al, Department of Obstetrics and Prenatal Medicine, University Medical  Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
  Crossing the placental barrier: preferential migration of microchimeric cells from maternal blood into fetal organs in mice
10:45 – 11:00 C.V. Perani et al, Department of Obstetrics and Prenatal Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
  Stress exposure during pregnancy affects placental 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2 and maternal immune repertoire   
11:00 – 11:15 M. Benner et al, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Laboratory of Medical Immunology,  Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
  Differential effects of bacteria on endometrial lymphocytes
11:15 – 11:30 C. Urbschat et al, Department of Obstetrics and Prenatal Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany 
  Developmental origin of hypertension: prenatal stress challenge reduces number of nephrons in mice offspring
Clinical Research
11:30 – 11:45 G. L. Engels et al, Viral Zoonoses and Adaptation, Heinrich Pette Institute, Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology, Hamburg, Germany
  Infection with the 2009 pandemic h1n1 influenza virus during pregnancy promotes viral escape via rapid emergence of influenza virus mutations in mice
11:45 – 12:00 M. Mori et al, Department of Obstetrics and Fetal Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg, Germany
  DEDD (death-effector domain-containing, DNA-binding protein) is required for decidual and vascular remodeling to sustain early pregnancy in mice.
12:00 – 12:15 C. Tersigni et al, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy
  HLA class ii is aberrantly expressed on circulating syncytiotrophoblast microparticles in early onset preeclampsia
12:15 – 12:30 Kristin Thiele et al, Laboratory for Experimental Feto-Maternal Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Fetal Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg, Germany
  Acetaminophen application during murine pregnancy impairs pathways of maternal adaptation to pregnancy.
12.30 – 13.30 Lunch (Dining Hall)
13.30 -14.30 Poster session 2 (Old Law Library/Lecture Room A)
Session 7 Implantation- is it all about the endometrium?
  Chair Professor Petra Arck
14.30 – 15.00 Professor Jan Brosens, University of Warwick, UK
  “The endometrium as a sensor of embryo quality”. 
  Journal of Reproductive Immunology, Senior Investigator Award Lecture
  Chair Professor Petra Arck
15.00 – 15.30 Professor David Clark
  "An Unexpected Journey"
15.30 – 16.00 tea
Session 8 Debate: Immune treatments for implantation failure- Why not?
  Chair Dr Ingrid Granne
16.00 -17.00 Associate Professor Gavin Sacks (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia) versus Professor Siobhan Quenby (University of Warwick, UK)
   
19.00 – 22.00 Gala Dinner, Magdalen College Dining Hall
   
Thursday 24th September
Session 9  Infection and Inflammation at the fetal-maternal interface
  Chair Dr Trudee Fair
9.00 – 9.30 Professor Martin Sheldon, University of Swansea, UK 
  “Infection and immunity in the female genital tract”. 
9.30 – 10.00 Dr Sarah Stock, University of Edinburgh, UK.
  “Inflammation, preterm labour and fetal injury”. 
10.00 – 10.15 H. Derricott et al,  Maternal & Fetal Health Research Centre, University of Manchester, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, Manchester 
  An In Vitro Model of Placental Inflammation
10.15 – 10.30 A.K. Boyle et al, Tommy's Centre for Maternal and Fetal Health at the MRC Centre for Reproductive Health, University of Edinburgh, Queen's Medical Research Institute, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
  Statin treatment in a novel infection-induced mouse model of preterm birth
10.30 – 11.00 Coffee
Session 10 Maternal factors and complications of pregnancy
  Professor Ole Christiansen
11.00 - 11.30 Dr Gendie Lash, Newcastle University, UK
  “Do Decidual cytokines play a role in the aetiology of spontaneous miscarriage”.
11.30 – 12.00 Dr Roberta Bulla, University of Trieste, Italy
  “The complement system at the embryo implantation site”
12.00 – 12.15 N. Di Simone et al, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy
  The inflammosome: a new player from innate immunity in the pathogenesis of recurrent pregnancy loss
12.15 – 12.30 P. Zardoya Laguardia et al, Institute of Cell Biology, Histology and Embryology, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria
  Tryptophan regulates the chorionic vascular tone and chorionic endothelial indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase-1 is deficient in intrauterine growth restriction and preeclampsia
12.30 – 1.30 Lunch (Dining Hall)
1.30 -2.30 Elsevier Author Workshop (The Grove Auditorium) 
Session 11 Placental signalling to maternal immune cells - extracellular vesicles
  Chair Dr Jen Southcombe
14.30 – 15.00 Dr Dionne Tannetta, University of Oxford, UK
  “Placental extracellular vesicles in normal pregnancy and pre-eclampsia”
15.00 – 15.30 Associate Professor Peggy Petroff, Michigan State University, USA 
  “Immunomodulatory placental exosomes in pregnancy”
15.30 – 15.45 V. von Schönfeldt et al, Hormon- und Kinderwunschzentrum, Klinik und Poliklinik für Frauenheilkunde und Geburtshilfe, Klinikum der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Campus Großhadern, München
  Increased expression of Plasminogen-Activator-Inhibitor Type 1 (PAI-1) in the sera of patients suffering from recurrent miscarriages (RM) and with anti-trophoblast antibodies (ATAB)
15.45 – 16.00 Lisa E.E.L.O. Lashley et al, Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Leiden University Medical Centre, the Netherlands
  Three is a crowd; complication after oocyte donation (I)
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