Epigenetic penetrance of reproductive technologies

9:30 - Epigenetic studies in early embryos: lessons from the bovine model

Heiner Niemann

Institute of Farm Animal Genetics, Friedrich-Lo¨ffler-Institut, Mariensee, 31535, Neustadt, Germany

Biography

Niemann, Heiner, Dr. med. vet., Dr. habil., Professor for Reproductive Biology at the University of Veterinary Sciences; Hannover, Germany; Member of Faculty of the Medical University Hannover (MHH), Head of the Institute of Farm Animal Genetics (FLI) in Mariensee and Head of Department Biotechnology,  Guest professorships at Monash University Melbourne, Australia and Kinki University Wakayama, Japan; Member of numerous scientific committees, incl. the Board of Governors of the International Embryo Transfer Society (IETS); one term IETS-President; member of Cluster of Excellence on Regenerative Medicine (REBIRTH), Main research areas: regulation of oocyte and preimplantation development in livestock species, transgenic livestock, somatic cloning, genetic diversity,stem cells,  world leader in animal biotechnology; total of 420 publications, including >250 peer reviewed publications, more than 10,000 citations, supervision of 80 PhD students, attracted significant amounts of competitive grant funding.

10:15 - One-carbon metabolism: linking nutritional biochemistry to epigenetic programming of long-term development

Kevin Sinclair

BSc, PhD, DSc, R Anim Sci, Professor of Developmental Biology School of Biosciences University of Nottingham (United Kingdom)

Biography

Kevin Sinclair is a Professor of Developmental Biology at the University of Nottingham, UK. His programme of work focuses on metabolic programming during early mammalian development, where epigenetic outcomes are determined in embryonic cells and tissues, and long-term developmental consequences assessed in offspring. Whereas his early studies investigated the effects of culture media composition on fetal development leading to the ‘Large Offspring Syndrome’ in ruminants, more recent studies have focussed on the effects of specific dietary nutrients around the time of conception on epigenetic programming of adult health and disease in offspring. His long-term objective is to identify the features of those eggs and/or embryos that give rise to viable and healthy offspring.

11.30 - ART in a mouse model system: placental development and epigenetic regulation

Marisa Bartolomei

Department of Cell and Developmental Biology - University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine (USA)

Biography

Marisa Bartolomei is a Professor of Cell & Developmental Biology and co-Director of the Epigenetics Program at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Marisa S. Bartolomei received her BS in Biochemistry at the University of Maryland and then obtained her PhD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine under the guidance of Dr. Jeffry Corden. She trained as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Shirley Tilghman at Princeton University. In 1993, Dr. Bartolomei was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 1999 and Professor in 2006. In 2006, Dr. Bartolomei received the Society for Women's Health Research Medtronics Prize for Contributions to Women's Health. In 2011, Dr. Bartolomei received the Jane Glick Graduate School Teaching Award for the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and a MERIT award. She was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2014.

12.15 - Epigenetic effects of assisted reproductive technologies on germ cells, resulting embryos and offspring

Thomas Haaf

Institute of Human Genetics - Julius Maximilians University, Wuerzburg, (Germany)

Biography

Born 1959.05.17. 1978-1984 Studies of Human Medicine at University of Würzburg, Germany. 1985 MD (summa cum laude) in Human Genetics at University of Würzburg. 1989-1995 Heisenberg fellow (awarded from the German Research Foundation) at the Departments of Genetics at Stanford University, California and Yale University, Connecticut. 1995-2001 Group Leader (Associate Professor level) at the Max-Planck-Institute of Molecular Genetics in Berlin, Germany. 1997 Board Certification in Human Genetics. 2001-2009 Chair for Human Genetics at Mainz University Medical Center. Since 2009 Chair for Human Genetics at University of Würzburg. Published >250 papers in peer-reviewed journals (h index 47, >11.000 citations). Research interests include epigenetic genome reprogramming in germ line and early embryo, epigenetic effects of assisted reproductive technologies, and fetal programming of adult health and disease.

13:00 - Artificial oocyte production from pluripotent stem cells in mice

Katsuhiko Hayashi

Professor, Division of Developmental Stem Cell Biology, Department of Stem Cell Biology of Medicine, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University (Japan)

Biography

Katsuhiko Hayashi (born 1971.12.2), a professor of Kyushu University, Faculty of Medical Sciences is working on germ cell development and its reconstitution in vitro in the career: 1994-1996 MS course of Meiji University, assistant professor in Tokyo University of Science (PhD 2004), staff researcher in Osaka Medical Center, post-doctoral fellow in the Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, and associate professor in Kyoto University.  From 2014, full professor in Department of Stem Cell Biology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University.

9:00 Nuclear transfer for the study of developmental epigenetic

Atsuo Ogura

RIKEN Bioresource Center, 3-1-1 Koyadai, Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki 305-0074 (Japan)

Biography

Atsuo Ogura obtained his PhD in 1987 from the University of Tokyo. After working at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID), Japan, he went to the University of Hawaii, USA, where he started his career in reproductive biology under the supervision of Dr. Ryuzo Yanagimachi. In 2002, he moved to RIKEN Bioresource Center (Head of the Bioresource Engineering Division and RIKEN Core PI). His research focuses on biology of reproduction and development including nuclear transfer cloning, fertilization, stem cells, and cryopreservation of gametes/embryos.

9:45 Production of offspring fromcells derived fromcarcass or cast offmaterial
Teruhiko Wakayama

Faculty of Life and Environmental Science, University of Yamanashi, Kofu (Japan)

Biography

Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama, Professor  Faculty of Life and Environmental Science, University of Yamanashi, Director  Advanced Biotechnology Center. Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama's research focuses on the cloning of adult mouse somatic cells as a research model for investigating the biology of mammalian cloning, and the preservation of mammalian spermatozoa using freeze-drying system.

11:00 - Sperm is epigenetically programmed to regulate gene transcription in embryos

Jerome Jullien

The Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 1QN (UK)

Biography

Jerome Jullien is a research associate at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, Cambridge, UK. His main research interest is nuclear reprogramming by eggs and oocytes. He focuses his research in defining the sequence of event leading to the reactivation of gene from nuclei transplanted to eggs and oocytes, as well as in identifying the components of somatic cells that restrict this nuclear reprogramming.

11:45 - The Impact of Sperm Epigenome in Reproduction: the Known and the Unknown

Undraga Schagdarsurengin

Head of "Epigenetics in Urological Diseases and in Reproductive Biology", Section Molecular Andrology and Urology, Clinic of Urology, Pediatric Urology and Andrology, JLU Giesse (Germany)

Biography

Professor Undraga Schagdarsurengin’s  was born and raised in Mongolia. In 1988 she began her undergraduate studies at the National University of Mongolia. In 1990 she moved to Halle, Germany to study biology at the Martin Luther University. She continued on and completed her PhD studies there on “Genetic risk marks of acute coronary disease”. Then, she worked as a Postdoc at the MLU Halle ” (2001-2007) and the JLU Giessen (2007-2010); in research in the field “Epigenetics of Carcinogenesis”. Prof. Schagdarsurengin is a Associate Professor at the Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Dept. of Urology, Pediatric Urology and Andrology, Section Molecular Andrology. Moreover, she is at Head of the working group “Epigenetics in Urological Diseases and in Reproductive Biology” at the JLU Giessen (2010-current). Professor Schagdarsurengin’s  research focuses on Epigenetics of spermatogenesis and early embryo development as  well as Epigenetic inactivation of tumor suppressor genes.

12:30 - Epigenetic programming and reprograming during development

Domenico Iuso

Teramo University, Teramo (Italy);  RIKEN Bioresource Center, 3-1-1 Koyadai, Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki 305-0074 (Japan)

Biography

Domenico Iuso is a Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Teramo, Italy from November 2012. His research focuses on Nuclear Reprogramming, especially to transform in vitro the somatic chromatin into spermatic chromatin before trasplantation in enucleated oocytes like key approach to improve The Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer. His findings had the best publication on Cell Reports Journal in December 2015. At this time, He is working as Visitor Researcher thanks to JSPS fellowship at RIKEN Bioresource Center in Tsukuba, Japan with main goal to complete his research in mouse model.