2026 Program

8:30 AM – Check-in and Continental Breakfast

9:00 AM – Session 1

9:00 AM – Ann A. Kiessling, PhD, Bedford Research Foundation
Title: “Introduction and “Why do fewer than 4% of human eggs collected develop to babies?”
9:20 AM – Keynote: Evelyn Telfer, BSc, PhD, CBE, FRSB, The University of Edinburgh
Title: “Growing Old Eggs and Making New Ones: The Promise and Challenges of In Vitro Gametogenesis ands Growth”

10:20 AM – Coffee Break & Posters

10:50 AM – Session 2

11:00 AM – Jonathan Van Blerkom, PhD, University of Colorado Boulder, “Can Focal Thermodynamic Instabilities in the Subplasmalemmal Cytoplasm Effect Adjacent Oolemmal Domains that Become Refractory to Fertilization?”
11:45 AM – Rafael Fissore, PhD, UMass at Amherst, “Egg Activation and Early Development: Orchestrating Multiple Ion Channels and Divalent Cations

12:20 PM – Lunch & Posters

1:30 PM – Session 3

1:30 PM – Dietrich M. Egli, PhD, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, “A Stressful Beginning — Genome Stability in the Mammalian Embryo”
2:10 PM – Ehsan Habibi, PhD, University of Ottawa, “Deciphering the Molecular Logic of Human Embryogenesis”

2:50 PM – Coffee Break & Poster Session

3:10 PM – Session 4

3:10 PM – Vicki Losick, PhD, Boston College, “The role and regulation of polyploidy in health and disease”
3:50 PM – Ali H. Brivanlou, PhD, The Rockefeller University, “Model Systems for Studying Chromosome Instability in Early Human Development”

4:30 PM – Panel Discussion

5:00 PM – Happy Hour & Poster Session

6:00 PM – Dinner & Dinner Speaker

Dinner Speaker: Elizabeth Carr, America’s First IVF Baby – Author and Advocate, “Can an Algorithm Be Ethical? As artificial intelligence becomes part of embryo selection, where does ethical responsibility begin—and where does it end?”