Symposium: New developments in cryopreservation and reproduction
Symposium: New developments in cryopreservation and reproduction

Speakers

Dr Louisa Zak is Global Platform Lead in Reproduction at Topigs Norsvin. She has been working with Topigs Norsvin for several years: first as a researcher in female reproduction, and now leading the research team in reproduction. Louisa is responsible for several research projects. Before starting with Topigs Norsvin, she worked as a Senior Clinical Research & Development Scientist at an animal health company where she focused on human and canine oncology, bovine and swine reproduction and veterinary vaccines. Louisa worked as a Postdoctoral Scientist at Queen’s University in the Anatomy and Cell Biology department, where she investigated the role of immune cells in placental angiogenesis, and at Alberta Agriculture as a scientist studying the physiology of sow reproduction. She obtained her PhD from the University of Alberta, Canada.

Dr Erik Mullaart is a Senior Researcher at CRV with extensive knowledge on molecular genetics, embryology and cell biology. He has been working for CRV for more than 25 years and he is responsible for several research projects and implementation of results of the CRV bovine breeding programme. He is also running a project on embryo technology, DNA technology and genomics. Before starting at CRV in 1997, Mr Mullaart worked at Ingeny BV as a Senior Scientist, and later as a manager of a small R&D team. He was responsible for the development and marketing of new DNA mutation detection methods (based on denaturing gradient technology). He is also co-inventor of an automated system for two-dimensional DNA electrophoresis. He obtained his PhD in Genetics at the University of Leiden.
Dr Marta de Ruijter-Villani is associate professor at the Department of Clinical Sciences of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Utrecht University and Researcher at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the division of Woman and Baby. She is a clinical embryologist, head of the Equine ICSI lab, Principal Investigator and Theme leader of in the group “Fertility and Assisted Reproduction.” She has developed pioneering imaging techniques and innovative models used for human fertility research. She cooperates closely with several Universities and institutes to apply these techniques and models. The main objective is to study the mechanisms affecting the fidelity of chromosome segregation in oocytes from aged females and in pre-implantation embryos, and thereby identify treatments that can be used in human assisted reproductive medicine to reduce oocyte and embryo aneuploidy and improve the results of IVF and ICSI.
Dr Mike McGrew is a group leader at The Roslin Institute, UK. He obtained his PhD from Boston University and pursued a research program in embryology at the IBDM in France. There, he was part of a research group that discovered a basic mechanism controlling the timing of the formation of body segments in vertebrates, now known as the ‘segmentation clock’. Afterwards, he joined The Roslin Institute in 2001 to help develop transgenesis in chickens for use in developmental biology and bio-pharming. His laboratory works on a type of stem cell in birds, the primordial germ cell, which makes the sperm and eggs of birds. These cells can be used to generate gene edited chickens, chicken which contain precise genetic changes in their genome. A benefit of this research will be the technology to create bio-banks (frozen aviaries) using germ cells. This is needed as the traditional methods used for species cryopreservation using semen and eggs are either inefficient or impossible in birds. Avian bio-banks will aid in the efforts to both manage and conserve both rare and industrial breeds of poultry. The future challenge is to extend biobanking to endangered bird species.
Dr Henri Woelders is a Senior Scientist at the Animal Sciences group of Wageningen University & Research (WUR). Mr Woelders is an experienced scientist who holds degrees from the University of Leiden and the University of Amsterdam. He is an expert in the field of animal breeding and genetics, biochemistry and cell biology.