JBRA Assist. Reprod. 2015; 19 (2):94
LETTERS TO THE EDITORS
doi: 10.5935/1518-0557.20150021
In Lima, we shared the joy of re-meet again, and we updated on the latest developments in assisted reproduction, in a joint event with the Peruvian Society of Fertility and the IFFS, International Federation of Fertility Societies. The 500 conference attendees had the great opportunity to hear speakers like Paul Devroey, Nikolaos Polyzos, Fernando Zegers, Edson Borges Jr, Maria do Carmo Borges de Souza, Deborah Ciocci, Debra Minjarez, Johan Smitz, Mark Hughes, Carmen Rubio, José Horcajadas, Gary Harton, Enrique Criado, Klaus Wiemer, Hilde Van de Velde, Hitomi Miura Nakagawa, Paulo Taitson, Xin Jin, Florence Nodar, Leticia Urdapilleta, Antonio Mackenna, Maria Teresa Olivieri, Javier Crosby, Soledad Sepúlveda, Randolfo Medina, Roberto Coco, Lidia Cantú, Efraín Perez Peña, Gabriel Fisjzbajn, Carlos Petta, Fabrizio Vizcarra and many more.
For those who could not join us, here we share a review of the congress of Lima: The first day we had several pre-conference for psychologists, nurses, midwives and embryologists, all rooms were crowded. Certification support Courses were held to Specialists Assisted Reproduction Doctors and also for Embryologists. In the afternoon, 40 students from PEC-Online and 50 applicants for certificates of REDLARA had the opportunity to present relevant examinations. Congratulations to all who passed the exams. Biol. Alia Lopez received an honorable mention for being the student who obtained the highest note.
The honor of opening the conference corresponded to Dr. Fernando Zegers, founder of REDLARA, with a lecture on “The current state of assisted reproduction in Latin America and the world”; and Dr. Paul Devroey, Director of the Education Committee of IFFS, presented a challenging lecture on “How to increase pregnancy rates without compromising patient safety”.
In the following days, we updated about the amazing advances in reprogenetics (pre-implantation sequencing, prenatal assessment of fetal aneuploidy, quick capture, evaluation of more than 250 mutations in carriers, etc), the chances of ovarian stimulation for poor responders, the individualized ovarian stimulation, the ethical and legal aspects of assisted reproduction, pros and cons of oocyte donation, and options for fertility preservation. IFFS shared with us tips on how to improve our chances of success in doing research and publish in scientific journals.
In this sense, the most important part of the conference was the presentation of scientific papers. REDLARA scientists had the opportunity to present their research to an evaluator jury and compete for the awards for Best Scientific Work, mentions oral presentation and poster.
The 2015 winners were:
- AWARD “REDLARA LIMA 2015” for Best Oral Presentation: Dr. Jhon Troya et al. Annexin-V-MACS in infertile couples as a method for separation of sperm without DNA fragmentation.
- AWARD REDLARA “LIMA - SOLEDAD SEPULVEDA 2015” Best Poster: Mariano Lavolpe et al. Aneuploidy rate in blastocysts generated from embryos with accelerated cleavage.
All selected for presentation at the conference in Lima, papers will be published in the JBRA Assisted Reproduction, the official organ of publication of both REDLARA and SBRA. We invite you to read them.
Another highlight of the conference was the presentation of Clinical Procedures Manual REDLARA for Assisted Reproduction (available as Kindle Book on Amazon), by the editor, Dr. Efrain Perez Peña.
The General Assembly chose the new President and Vice-President of REDLARA (2015-2019). For the first time, an embryologist holds the post of REDLARA: Dr. Maria Teresa Urbina, from Venezuela, who has twice been elected as Director of the Caribbean Region, Colombia and Venezuela, and is the Coordinator of the Interest Group on Bioethics and Human Rights. As Vice-President was elected Dr. Edson Borges Jr from Brazil, Ph.D. both in Urology and Gynecology, who has published over 100 papers and were a winner of the Grant for Fertility Innovation Merck Serono in 2012. Dra. Maria Teresa Olivieri, Embryologist, Substitute Director of the Caribbean Region, Colombia, and Venezuela, becomes the new Regional Director for this area.
To close the conference, our beloved outgoing President, Dr. Maria Do Carmo Borges de Souza shared an important message to take home: Focus on the patient. We take this opportunity to thank Dr. Maria do Carmo Borges de Souza, outgoing President, and Dr. Roberto Coco, outgoing Vice-President, infinitely, for their outstanding leadership in managing REDLARA.
We keep growing, it happened a reinforcement of continuous education with over 400 students from PEC-online, 27 students in the joint Master with the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the alliance with IFFS; there was an increase in the number of centers reporting to the Register, and also, in the quantity of individual members; we promoted the inclusion of specialists who expressed interest in collaborating with committees; diversified funding sources; we began the program on Certification of Physician and Embryologists; published the REDLARA Clinical Guidelines and actively participated in public consultations in Uruguay, Perú, Venezuela and Costa Rica’s trial in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, defending the rights of patients, among many other programmes. Together, we will continue doing good things.
We thank once again our strategic partners: Cook Medical, Merck Serono, MSD, Cooper Surgical (Origio), IVF Online, Expert, Vitrolife, Reprogenetics, Recombine, BGI, Ferring, Biopas, Ovobank, Smiths Medical, Bioarray, Igenomix, Illumina , Dibimed/Kitazato, Research Instruments, Kossodo, Tecnofarma, Genesis Genetics, Live Meeting, Laboratorios Gador, Global Services, Index, Travel Security, Mesofarma. We also want to make a great recognition of professional organizations that collaborated with us: the IFFS and the Peruvian Society of Fertility, for all the attention received during the course of this successful conference.
Congressional Photos Lima can be found in www.redlara.com and on our Facebook: Red Lara.
We invite you to our upcoming 2015 workshops:
- Bogotá, Colombia, May 29 to 30
- Buzios, Brazil, August 5 to 8
- Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 18 to 19
- Mexico City, Mexico, December 4 to 5
We are pleased to announce that our next general congress in 2017 will be in the beautiful city of Buenos Aires!
Not to be missed! Save de dates.
Latin America making ART.
Maria Teresa Urbina and the board of Directors
President of REDLARA - Latin America Network of As sisted Reproduction
REFERENCES
Red Latinoamericana de Reproducción Asistida. Manual de procedimientos clínicos en reproducción asistida. Perez E, editor. 2015. (Kindle book). Venezuela: Editorial Ateproca. 2015.