Thursday, April 7, 2011, 09:00-18:00   Director:                Amparo Mercader, Spain

09:00-10:30	THEORETICAL SESSION
	Principles involved in co-culture and embryo development
10:30-11:00	Coffee Break
11:00-13:00	LIVE DEMONSTRATION
	"Epithelial endometrial cells isolation and culture"
13:00-14:00	Lunch Break
14:00-18:00	HANDS-ON WORKSHOP: CO-CULTURE
	The workshop is organized by the IVI group.   In order to optimize embryo development in vitro, it is essential to adopt a global approach to the embryo culture system that takes into account the media, gas phase, type of medium overlay, culture vessel, incubation chamber, ambient air quality and the embryologists themselves. The dramatic changes in embryo physiology, nutrient requirements and nutrient gradients in the female reproductive tract have led to the formulation of two culture media that are applied at different stages of human embryo development. This is the practice of sequential culture media. On the other hand, the concept of “cells helping cells”, extended throughout many areas of cell biology, has prompted embryologists to co-culture human embryos in the presence of other types of cells (feeder cells), resulting in the development of the co-culture system. We have developed a co-culture system using human endometrial epithelial cells (Simón et al., 1999, Mercader et al., 2006), and we routinely use this system as a clinical program in our centre (Mercader et al., 2003). In 2008, Kattal et al. presented a meta-analysis that concludes that the pooled data of human trials on co-culture demonstrate a statistically significant improvement in implantation, clinical and ongoing pregnancy rates.
	Workshop Fee: €1700 (One thousand seven hundred euro)    *Workshop & Congress Fee: €2100 (Two thousand one hundred euro) *Grants the participant access to the IVI Congress and CRYO Congress.
	REGISTRATION IS RUN ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVE BASIS
	CRYO CONGRESS Scientifc Program: http://www.comtecmed.com/CRYO/2011/scipro.aspx Registration: http://www.comtecmed.com/CRYO/2011/registration.aspx
	IVI CONGRESS Scientifc Program: http://comtecmed.com/ivi/2011/sp.aspx Registration: http://comtecmed.com/ivi/2011/Registration.aspx