Together. All the way.

In connection to a recent post on the benefits of consistent annotation we invited readers to take a short survey on the use of annotations in their time-lapse software. Thanks to all of you who answered – here are the results.

The 11th Alpha Biennial Congress took place in the beginning of May. Vitrolife was present, together with around 400 participants. If you were not there, this blog post will give you a short recap and the opportunity to watch our Scientific Symposium "Time-lapse for improved overall IVF". 

^{Photo: Knoxville News Sentinel} 

It is with much sadness that we report the passing of Peter Mazur on December 30, 2015. Peter Mazur was a great scientist who contributed enormously to the current knowledge of cryobiology. Cryopreservation of cells and tissues has become important in not only human reproduction, but also in many other areas of medicine.

Preimplantation Genetic Screening (PGS) is a procedure designed to examine embryos for chromosomal abnormalities with the aim of de-selecting embryos with low implantation potential. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) refers to genetic diagnosis of embryos prior to transfer in cases with a known inherited disorder. Vitrolife has conducted a survey within the IVF community to determine how wide spread the use of these procedures actually is in the everyday routines. The results will be shared in this blog post.

Can you tell the difference between a validation and a clinical study? Do you know what to consider when starting a randomised controlled trial? Being author or co-author on more than 60 peer reviewed papers I have a keen interest in current regulation regarding clinical studies and will share some of my experience on conducting clinical studies in this blog post. I hope I will be able to help you sort out some of the many variables related to clinical studies and what you need to consider.

ASRM – the American Society for Reproductive Medicine took place in Baltimore, USA at the end of October. Together, the Vitrolife team covered most of the scientific sessions. The programme as always covered a large variety of topics. The continued interest in the use of time-lapse in the IVF clinic was particularly evident. In this blog post we share some of the highlights in our view.

Is so called social freezing, the ability to freeze a woman´s unfertilised egg, a controversial service or a revolution for women? Dr. Valérie Vernaeve, Medical Director at Eugin Clinic in Spain, has positive experience of helping women this way in her clinic. In this blog post she shares her experience and research on the relatively new phenomenon social freezing.

Once again we have visited ESHRE, the annual meeting for European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology, the biggest event in the field of IVF. Together, the Vitrolife team covered most of the sessions and listened to many interesting and sometimes provoking presentations. In this blog post we will share some of our thoughts from this year’s meeting in Lisbon, Portugal.

As ESHRE is approaching, you may be getting your presentations ready. With up to 10,000 people expected to attend, how do you make your talk stand out? By making it memorable, engaging and informative. John Clare has helped thousands of physicians and researchers prepare for presentations just like this. In this blog post he will share his most important tips for how to make your presentation memorable.