Discussion

Professor Thomas FREOUR, PharmD, PhD, is a clinical embryologist, head of the infertility department of the University Hospital of Nantes, France. He is also director of research and innovation of the IVF lab of the clinica Dexeus in Barcelona, Spain. He authored more than 100 publications, and is currently Associate Editor at Human Reproduction Journal. His main fields of interest are clinical and fundamental embryology, and innovation in IVF, including Artificial Intelligence.

After an undergraduate degree in Engineering (Agronomy) at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), Anne Goriely obtained a PhD studying the development of the nervous system of the Drosophila embryo. She spent 4 years in New York at Cornell Medical School and Rockefeller University, before moving to the UK to work on the nervous system development of the chick embryo. In 2000 she joined the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine (University of Oxford) to study the origin of rare human developmental disorders associated with paternal age effects. She is currently Professor of Human Genetics based at the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford. Using a human genetics approach, her group’s main interests lie in elucidating the mechanisms by which we acquire new germline mutations and the implications of such processes in health and disease.

Giovanni Coticchio holds a a PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology and a qualification of full professor. He is Chief Scientific Officer of IVIRMA Global Research Alliance, 9.baby Bologna, Italy. He has published over one hundred and ten peer-reviewed papers, several book chapters and two books. Since June 2021, he has served as member of the Executive Committee of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE).

Mariano G Buffone Ph.D. earned his Bachelors and master’s degree in Biochemistry from University of Buenos Aires, Argentina where he also obtained his PhD. He then moved to the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, USA) as a postdoctoral fellow under the direction of professors George L. Gerton and Richard M. Schultz. In 2010, Dr Buffone moved to Buenos Aires and became Assistant Professor at the Instituto de Biologia y Medicina Experimental in Buenos Aires, Argentina where he leads his research team Since 2015, he assumed his present position as Professor at the same institution. He was recently appointed as Vice Director of the Institute. His laboratory seeks to understand the complex process of mammalian sperm capacitation with particular emphasis in the process of acrosomal exocytosis. To this end, his lab uses a wide range of approaches that include the analysis of signaling pathways, single cell imaging experiments, super resolution microscopy and in vivo studies. Dr Buffone has also been very active collaborating with several groups in the United States, Japan, Mexico and Argentina