Editorial

Article Outline

• Conflict of interest
• Copyright

Trophoblast Research is a record of meetings held under the auspices of the International Federation of Placental Associations (IFPA). The present volume, Placenta: Established Hypotheses and Current Concepts, is a report of IFPA Meeting 2008 and comprises fourteen review articles based on plenary presentations and a comprehensive workshop report. The meeting was hosted by the European Placenta Group and the Medical University of Graz. We owe a great debt to Dr. B. Huppertz and his colleagues for developing an exciting programme that reflected the state of the art in placental research. The high quality of the contributions will be apparent from the papers in this volume.

Workshops are an important part of every IFPA Meeting. Previous volumes of Trophoblast Research have included reports from selected workshops but, for a variety of reasons, the record has been incomplete. In the current volume we attempt a new format, covering all twelve workshops in a single report. I am grateful to the workshop organizers for supplying summaries and especially to Dr. Gendie Lash, who edited these disparate contributions into a coherent whole.

Three new people have kindly consented to join the Editorial Board. They are Dr. Larry Chamley, University of Auckland, New Zealand, Dr. Gendie Lash, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, and Dr. Kunio Shiota, University of Tokyo, Japan. Together they represent a welcome addition to our knowledge base. All articles in this volume of Trophoblast Research were invited and underwent peer review. The dedication of the authors, reviewers and Editorial Board has made it possible to publish the volume within six months of the meeting in Austria with most papers being available on line well before that. This rapid publication is also a reflection of the excellent and professional work of the Elsevier Health Sciences publication team. In particular, it is a pleasure to acknowledge Joanne Merrett and Greyling Peoples for their sturdy support of our journals and our organization.

We look forward to meeting you again during IFPA Meeting 2009 in Adelaide, Australia, and IFPA Meeting 2010 in Chile.

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Conflict of interest 

The author does not have any potential or actual personal, political, or financial interest in the information described in the editorial.