Preface

Article Outline

• Copyright

IFPA Meeting 2007 was hosted by the Placenta Association of the Americas and Queen's University Research Group in Reproduction, Development and Sexual Function. The meeting, entitled “Placenta: Platform for Life,” was held on the Queen's University campus in Kingston, Ontario, 17–21 August 2007. Drs. Anne Croy and Charles Graham from the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Queen's University served as co-chairs. Sunny days, the waterfront location of the campus and the historic nature of the city core enhanced everyone's enjoyment of the outstanding scientific presentations.

The total of 430 delegates included a most helpful core of 15 volunteer research trainees and university staff in bright green IFPA logo T-shirts who provided support to all phases of the meeting and added a special level of enthusiasm. Their training was enriched by the opportunity to meet the community of scientists active in both clinical and basic research on the placenta. Delegates were present from 37 different countries with half coming from Canada or the United States of America.

The Scientific Program was developed by an International Program Committee and refined by the Local Organizing Committee in consultation with IFPA executive members. The meeting began with a well attended opening reception and dinner, highlighted by a maple leaf-IFPA logo ice sculpture, followed by a Keynote Lecture by Dr. David Haig, Harvard University. The next 4 mornings were dedicated to 7 plenary sessions and an awards session and concluded with a closing Keynote Lecture by Dr. Janet Rossant, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. Twenty workshops, 4 poster sessions with >280 presentations, 2 debates and a junior investigator session of 9 oral presentations rounded out the program. These were complemented by a dinner cruise on the St. Lawrence River and a Canadiana Food Fare Dinner. Both evenings provided the opportunity to develop new friendships and collaborations and to renew established ones.

The plenary sessions began by examination of the structure of the human and mouse placenta by ultrasound and histopathology to give delegates a shared understanding. The remaining plenary sessions built from this foundation and addressed implantation site lymphangiogenesis, regulation of placental and fetal growth including epigenetic regulatory paths and outcomes, biomarkers of placental health and disease and pre-eclampsia.

The awards ceremony was part of the closing plenary session and involved Kingston's Town Crier, Mr. Chris Whyman, dressed in vivid red and gold period costume. In all, 70 junior investigators received recognition for their abstracts, posters and oral presentations. Most were travel awards generously funded by Dr. Y.W. Loke, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) and the Institute for Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA. The 2007 Elsevier Trophoblast Research Award for the best poster was presented to Jocelyn Ray, Toronto, Canada. The 2007 Elsevier Placenta New Investigator Award went to Miao Chang, Springfield, USA, for best oral presentation. The Awards selection committees chaired by Drs. Colin Sibley, Manchester, UK and Martin Knoefler, Vienna, Austria, had no easy task due to the high quality presentations made by the 154 junior investigators.

Following the awards ceremony, Dr. Malgorzata Gasperowicz, Frieburg, Germany, updated delegates on her work since winning the 2006 Trophoblast Research Award in Kobe, Japan. This was followed by the IFPA 2007 Award in Placentology Lecture delivered by Dr. Myriam Hemberger, Babraham Research Institute, Cambridge, UK.

It is difficult to select just a few highlights from a very successful meeting. The special lectures sponsored by NIH and CIHR and given by Drs. R. Michael Roberts, Columbia, Missouri and Christopher Redman, Oxford, UK, were outstanding. These state of the art lectures reflected the continuing leadership these investigators bring to both clinical and basic aspects of placental research. The debate between Drs. Jay Cross, Calgary, Alberta and Graham Burton, University of Cambridge, UK, will be legendary. These investigators took sides of the question “the roles for animal models in understanding the human fetal–maternal interface” opposite to their publication biases and, with delivery akin to Shakespearean-trained actors, challenged delegates in a most entertaining way to think carefully about extrapolations between species and broadly about how to fund research on the placenta. The quality of the workshops was akin to that of the plenary sessions with numerous contributions from global leaders and successful junior investigators. Special features were the Junior Investigator Career Development workshop organized by Dr. John Challis, and the mouse histopathology consultation session in which Drs. Brad Bolon and Colin McKerlie reviewed delegate-submitted tissues with participants. The success of these 2 new types of workshops argues for their regular inclusion in IFPA meetings.

IFPA Meeting 2007 received generous sponsorship and exhibitor support. In addition to CIHR and NIH, major sponsors were Queen's University and the Kingston General Hospital. Many university departments and Research Institutes across Canada also partnered. We are most grateful to our partners and hope their faculty, staff and research trainees benefited from this meeting being held in Canada. We are also most grateful to all of the presenters, workshop chairs, IFPA executive and to Joanne Merrett and Greyling Peoples at Elsevier who generously gave of their time and advice to make the meeting a success. The review of 300 abstracts was a major undertaking. The contributions of Drs. P.K. Lala and M. van den Heuvel, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, in leading this task were enormous. Mrs. Marilyn McAuley from Queen's Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology was unfailing in her support at the secretariat. She was the source of many of the suggestions that enhanced the meeting and was ably assisted by Ms. Julie Sharrard and Ms. Suzanne Burke of Queen's University.

The articles in this volume reflect but a small part of the excellent science being conducted today to understand the role of the placenta in determining fetal development and growth and the long-term, lifelong effects from stressors and suboptimal placental function during gestation. The availability of stem cells within fetal membranes has long-term potential in basic and clinical research settings. Much of what we study has broader applications in biology and, together with investigators from diverse fields, we continue to move towards improved understanding in health promotion of future generations from the time of conception.

We thank everyone who attended the IFPA Meeting 2007 and look forward to meeting you again.