Preface

Article Outline

• Copyright

IFPA Meeting 2008 was arranged by the European Placenta Group (EPG) and the Medical University of Graz and held at Seggau Castle on 10–13 September 2008. The theme of the conference was “Placenta – Established hypotheses and current concepts.” Berthold Huppertz from the Institute of Cell Biology, Histology and Embryology of the Medical University of Graz served as chair. Irene Cetin (Milan, Italy) and Anthony Carter (Odense, Denmark) were members of the organising committee and Nina Cosgrove from Elsevier Conference Service put a lot of effort into the organisation of this meeting.

Warm and sunny days (with an impressive thunderstorm) and the unique setting of an 800-year-old castle on top of a hill produced an excellent ambiance for superb scientific contributions. 403 delegates found their way to the castle, including no less than 187 New Investigators. The delegates were from 44 countries representing on five continents. Five delegates deserve special mention since these university staff people provided a support and friendliness everyone will remember. The same is true for the castle staff that provided an outstanding atmosphere of well-being and comfort.

The scientific program began on Wednesday afternoon with an opening and kind words from a member of the Styrian Federal Government as well as the Vice Rector for Students' Affairs of the Medical University of Graz. Before the meeting ended with a gala dinner on Saturday evening the delegates could choose to attend a State-of-the-Art lecture, the Elsevier Trophoblast Award lecture and the Gabor Than Award lecture, four symposia, 15 New Investigator oral presentations, 12 workshops and three lunch-time workshops. Two attended poster sessions and one unattended poster session with more than 320 poster presentations rounded out the program. Furthermore, two informal discussion groups on IUGR and in vitro models for villous cytotrophoblast differentiation allowed more specific discussion on selected topics.

The evenings were occupied with a welcome reception on Wednesday, the free poster session on Thursday, a wine tasting with medieval music in the 300-year-old wine cellar of the castle on Friday, and a gala dinner in an old soap factory in Graz on Saturday. Especially the Thursday evening seems to have made a strong impression on the participants. These events together with the castle and its yards, its large terrace and its old trees generated an inspiring atmosphere in which to develop new contacts and friendships, generate new collaborations and renew existing ones and discuss findings in more detail with others.

The symposia started with the evolution of placental function from implantation to parturition. They continued with the aetiology of preeclampsia, where old concepts and new hypotheses were discussed, followed by genetics and proteomics in pregnancy, where new developments and techniques in the field were introduced. The series of symposia ended with a very well attended symposium on pregnancy disorders that was dedicated to the achievements of Henning Schneider.

The awards ceremony took place during the gala dinner. Sixty delegates received recognition of their abstracts, oral presentations or poster presentations – or of their achievements in the field of placentology. The majority of awards was generously given by Dr. Y.W. Loke as New Investigator travel awards. For US-based New Investigators there were nine awards funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). An NIH senior investigator award was given to James Roberts. The Elsevier Placenta New Investigator Award in recognition of the best oral presentation was presented to Samantha Smith from the University of Manchester, UK, who talked about the role of immune cells in remodelling spiral arteries during early pregnancy. The Elsevier Trophoblast Research New Investigator Award in recognition of the best poster presentation was presented to Tamara Tilburgs from Leiden University Medical Centre, Netherlands, who presented a poster on fetus-specific regulatory T cells in the decidua. The EPG Peter Kaufmann New Investigator Award in recognition of the best contribution incorporating morphological aspects was presented to Moacir Franco Oliviera from the Northeast University Mossoró, Brazil, who presented a poster on the placental differentiation in Galea spixii. The Gabor Than Foundation Award in Placentology was presented to Tereza Cindrova-Davies from the University of Cambridge, UK, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the field of placentology. The award committees were chaired by Martin Knoefler, Vienna (Placenta award), Colin Sibley, Manchester (Trophoblast Research award) and Berthold Huppertz, Graz (Peter Kaufmann award). Their task was not easy due to the great number of high quality presentations by the 187 New Investigators.

Highlighting single talks or sessions of this meeting is quite difficult since the meeting as a whole was impressive and outstanding. The State-of-the-Art lecture given by James Roberts together with the symposium on the aetiology of preeclampsia nicely depicted why preeclampsia is still the syndrome of hypotheses. Old concepts and new hypotheses were put forward and discussed amicably but in great detail. The symposium dedicated to Henning Schneider's achievements in the field of placentology not only comprised an interesting insight into the scientific career of Henning Schneider himself, but also included excellent contributions; especially his own on why dual in vitro perfusion of placental tissues actually works.

The workshops included the immunology of placentation and the role of chemokines and signalling in invasion. There were a number of workshops on trophoblast dealing with regulation of differentiation, transport of fatty acids and markers to identify subpopulations. Other workshops focused on clinical aspects such as neoplasia, toxicology and clinical correlates of placental pathologies. Workshops on placentas from different species and mesenchymal stem cells rounded off the list of workshop topics. One workshop needs special mention since for the first time at an EPG meeting a hands-on workshop was provided. This workshop, on how to quantify placental structures using stereology, attracted strong interest even though the attendees needed to measure and calculate on their own during this workshop. I also want to mention the lunch-time “How to …” workshops. Planned for a small group of people, it became obvious during the first lunch-time workshop that the number of attendees would exceed our highest expectations.

IFPA Meeting 2008 received generous support and sponsorship from a number of companies such as Diagnostic Technologies Ltd, Israel, HVD, Austria, PerkinElmer, USA, and Zeiss, Austria. Further support was given by the Government of Styria, the EU-funded project Pregenesys (#037244) and the Medical University of Graz. I am grateful for the generous sponsorship received. In addition it is a pleasure to thank all the delegates who gave oral presentations, created and presented posters, organised workshops and chaired sessions. I also appreciate the support of the IFPA executive and of Nina Cosgrove from Elsevier Conference Service who gave her time and efforts to make this meeting a success.

The articles in this issue of Trophoblast Research cover only a small part of what was presented at IFPA Meeting 2008. The breadth and diversity of science and beliefs presented and discussed during this meeting made it clear that the field of placentology is vibrant and living. The high number of young scientists attending emphasizes that it is more important than ever to encourage dynamic cross talk between the generations and to keep the young scientists involved in further developing IFPA.

I want to thank all who participated in IFPA Meeting 2008 and hope to meet all of you again.