Invited speakers

PhD

Aisling Ahlström is currently the Group-wide Lab director for Livio AB and the local Lab director at Livio Fertilitetscentrum in Gothenburg. From Australia, she did her Bachelors degree in Science, with honors, whereafter she worked as a research assistant in the field of reproductive immunology, in Adelaide. In 2000 she moved to Sweden and started to work as an embryologist in a private clinic, the Fertilitetscentrum, established in 1987. At Fertilitetscentrum she studied for her PhD degree, in 2013. Her main research interests include embryo viability, selections methods and blastocyst culture. She is currently part of ESHRE’s Executive committee.

Dr. Marie Louise Grøndahl is director of the IVF laboratory at the Copenhagen University Hospital, Herlev Hospital. Dr. Grøndahl became Doctor of Veterinary Medicine in 1991, obtained the PhD degree in 1997 and the Doctor of Medical Sciences (DMSc) degree in 2019, all from the University of Copenhagen. Marie Louise has served in the board of directors in the Danish and Nordic Fertility Societies. Her key research focuses on the gene expression and epigenetic profiles of cumulus and granulosa cells and oocytes in relation age and competence. Marie Louise and colleagues were the first to establish research on the use of PGT-A in Denmark.

Assistant Professor, University of Copenhagen, Center for Chromosome Stability

Jennifer Gruhn is an Assistant Professor in the laboratory of Prof. Eva Hoffmann at the University of Copenhagen.  In Denmark she is working at the center of one of the largest collaborative studies of human oocytes, which combines samples and expertise from IVF clinics from over five different countries.

Dr. Gruhn started in the field of human reproduction in the laboratory of Dr. Terry Hassold at Washington State University, where she wrote her Ph.D. on sex-specific differences in human meiotic recombination and its impact on downstream chromosome segregation.

She has now shifted her focus to the effects of maternal age on chromosome segregation errors and aneuploidy directly in the adult female germline. This research is being done utilizing a unique combination of genomics and cytogenetics to study DNA damage pathways and genome stability in female meiosis.

Trine B. Haugen is Professor and Leader of the Research Group Male Reproductive Health at Department of Life Sciences and Health, OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway. She has been Director of Andrology Laboratory at Rikshospitalet University Hospital and has broad experience from research within the fields of male infertility and testicular cancer. She is chairing an interdisciplinary research group with focus on the use of artificial intelligence in assisted reproduction technology. Haugen was member of the Editorial Team of the WHO laboratory manual for the examination and processing of human semen (5th ed) and member of the Editorial Board of Andrology. She was Associate Editor of Human Reproduction from 2018 through January 2022.

Prof., DMSc, The Fertility Clinic Skive Regional Hospital and Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

Professor Peter Humaidan is a specialist in reproductive endocrinology, professor at The Fertility Clinic Skive Regional Hospital, Aarhus University, Denmark and Honorary professor at Odense University, Denmark. During his scientific work he has primarily focused on developing individualized treatment protocols for the infertile patient. His main fields of interest are triggering of ovulation with GnRH agonist, role of LH during the follicular and luteal phases, role of the female genital tract microbiota for reproductive outcomes, OHSS prevention, and role of sperm DNA fragmentation for spontaneous and assisted reproduction.

He is the founder of the international society “The Copenhagen GnRHa Triggering Workshop Group” who introduced the GnRHa trigger in modern IVF, changing trigger policies worldwide. Moreover, he is co-founder of the POSEIDON group which suggested a new stratification of the poor responder patient, and a past board member of the ESHRE SIG Endocrinology Group. He has authored and co-authored 240 + articles (H-index 60, Google Scholar) in international peer reviewed journals as well as chapters in textbooks and the Danish guidelines for OHSS prevention.

A professor in pediatrics at the Department of Pediatrics, University of Helsinki, Finland. 

She graduated from medical school at the University of Turku in 1992 and presented her doctoral thesis entitled “Leukemia in the testis” in 1995 at the Department of Anatomy at the same university. She did postdoc at the Karolinska Institutet 1998-1999 and at the University of Pittsburgh 2005-2006. She finished her education in pediatric hematology and oncology in 2006 at Children´s Hospital, Helsinki and has worked as senior consultant in the Unit of Pediatric Oncology in Helsinki from 2008. She was appointed adjunct professor of pediatrics at the Karolinska Institutet in 2002, adjunct professor of pediatric hematology and oncology at the University of Helsinki in 2012 and full professor of pediatrics at the University of Helsinki in 2020.  

The main focus of her research has been on late adverse effects among adult survivors of childhood cancer and pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. She and her colleagues have shown that survivors after pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplantation are at risk of early gonadal, skeletal and vascular aging and frailty. Her research group is exploring methods to predict and prevent gonadal late effects after childhood cancer. The clinical aim is to establish clinical quality testing of cryopreserved immature ovarian and testicular tissue collected for fertility preservation. 

Jukka Kekäläinen is an evolutionary biologist and an associate professor at the University of Eastern Finland. In his earlier research he has clarified the mechanisms of sexual selection and mate choice both prior and after the copulation. In recent years he has concentrated on studying these evolutionary processes in humans. One of the primary aims of this research is to utilize evolutionary principles to better understand the mechanisms of infertility.

Noora Kotaja, Professor of Molecular Medicine, University of Turku, Institute of Biomedicine.

Noora Kotaja is a Professor of Molecular Medicine and the director of the Integrative Physiology and Pharmacology Research Unit at the Institute of Biomedicine, University of Turku, Finland. After obtaining her PhD on androgen signaling at the University of Helsinki, she did postdoctoral training at the IGBMC, Strasbourg, France, on germ cell-specific regulation of gene expression. Her current research at the University of Turku focuses on RNA regulatory mechanisms in male germ cells and their implications in male fertility and paternal epigenetic inheritance of acquired conditions.

Senior Consultant, PhD, Department of Reproductive Medicine, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden

My fields if interest and research are efficacy and safety aspects of ovarian stimulation and stimulation strategies for frozen embryo transfers. Furthermore, short term and long term follow up on children born after ART.

Professor, Consultant, Head of recurrent pregnancy loss unit

Dept. of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Copenhagen University Hospital, Hvidovre & Dept. of Clinical Medicine, University of Copenhagen

Research focus: Pathophysiology in reproductive disease

Dr. Verena Nordhoff, Assistant professor, Centre of Reproductive Medicine and Andrology, University of Münster

Verena Nordhoff is a biologist by training and works as senior clinical embryologist at the CeRA since 2001. Her groups research focuses on the influence of culture media and media supplements on preimplantation development in the mouse. Her clinical interest is the optimization of sperm selection especially from testicular biopsies (TESE) for intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).

Doctoral researcher, Functional Embryo Genomics lab, University of Helsinki

I am interested in finding out how small non-coding RNAs regulate normal human embryo development. In my work, I combine computational biology, NGS-based technologies, and stem cell-based models of human embryos. If you want to know more about what our lab does you can find us on Twitter at @funcembryomics.

MD, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Oulu University Hospital, and in University of Oulu, FINLAND.

Her team has focused on the lifelong health in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS); hyperandrogenism, mental and metabolic health issues and on early onset of PCOS. Dr. Piltonen serves as associate editor in European Journal of Endocrinology and as a board member in the Androgen Excess and PCOS Society and the Finnish Endocrine Society and a scientific committee member in the Nordic Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (NFOG). She has published extensively in the field of PCOS, contraception and endometrial functions with over 90 peer reviewed publications.

http://www.oulu.fi/mrc/research-groups/piltonen

MD, DMSc, professor

Anja Pinborg is an expert in clinical reproductive medicine and was appointed professor at University of Copenhagen in 2013. Since 2018 she has been professor and medical director at the Fertility Department at Rigshospitalet. She has published 250 original papers and authored seven book-chapters and has an H-index of 48 (Web of Science). She is past member of ESHRE EXCO (2017-2021) and of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (2015-2021) and former president for Nordic Fertility Society (2011-2015).

MD. Specialist in obstetrics and gynecology (2017)

Department of obstetrics and gynecology, Reproductive endocrinology unit, Tampere University Hospital.

Eeva-Maria Pohjonen is currently preparing a thesis on complications after infertility treatments, with a focus on hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.

MD, PhD, Professor of Reproductive Oncology, Obstetrics and Gynecology at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. She is also the Head of the Program of Fertility Preservation at the Department of Reproductive Medicine of Karolinska University Hospital.

Dr Rodriguez-Wallberg has published extensively on reproductive medicine, assisted reproductive technologies, fertility preservation, obstetrical and perinatal outcomes of children conceived through ART, transgender reproductive issues, reproductive endocrinology, genetics and menopause.

She has received important research prizes including the Young Clinical Investigation Award from the Swedish Research Council and the Senior Clinical Investigator Award from the Swedish Cancer Society.

Malene Hviid Saxtorph MD, PhD

Resident doctor in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Herlev University Hospital, Department of obstetrics and gynecology Borgmester Ib Juuls Vej 1, 2730 Herlev, Denmark

MHS has published articles and finished a PhD investigating findings in the endometrium among women with recurrent implantation failure (RIF).

MSc in biophysics and a PhD in molecular endocrinology from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Arne Sunde served as a laboratory director of the ART-laboratory at St. Olav’s University hospital in Trondheim since 1984 and was appointed Head of the Fertility Clinic in 2006. From 2015 to 2016 he served as the Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at St. Olav’s University Hospital.  He was appointed professor in Cell biology in 1994 and is currently professor emeritus at the Department of Clinical and Molecular Medicine, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

He is formally one of the founders of ESHRE and served as its chairman 2003 to 2005. He has been an Associate Editor (2014-2017) and from 2019 the Editor in Chief in in Human Reproduction Update.

Post doc, Current place of work: Fertility Clinic, Rigshospitalet, Denmark 

Short bio: Randi Sylvest finished her PhD in Public Health from Copenhagen University, Denmark with the topic Men and family formation. Her research field includes qualitative research with focus on men, family formation and fertility awareness as well as quantitative research with focus on fertility preservation, cancer and registry studies.

PhD, is a principal investigator at the University of Helsinki in Finland. After defending her PhD at the University of Helsinki she conducted post-doctoral research first at the University of Cambridge under supervision of Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, and then at the Karolinska Institutet under supervision of Professor Juha Kere. Vuoristo now heads her own research group, which aims to understand how the non-coding genome participates in the regulation of human embryo development.