Our 5th meeting was a great success!
The meeting was held this year adjacent to the 17th European Testis Workshop (ETW) from April 19th – 20th 2012 outside Stockholm, Sweden. This year 50 participants from 12 countries were joining our meeting and due to the excellent talks and the active discussions it was a great success for all of us. As we did in former meetings adjacent to the ETW, we organized four invited talks by well-known experts in the field of reproductive medicine and biology (as you can see below). In addition to the invited talks we also gave the opportunity to all participants to discuss the topics in more depth with the experts in an “open panel”. Our first session focused on germ cells, especially on the process of meiosis and germ cell differentiation, including both the basics and its clinical implication by Dr Thierry Voets, Leuven, and Dr Rod Mitchell, Edinburgh. We then continued with the second session which focused on somatic cells where Dr Katja Teerds and Dr Bernard Jégou pointed out the importance of Leydig cells and Sertoli cells respectively. Many interactive discussions made this meeting fruitful for both the participants and the lecturers. As boardmembers of the “International Network for Young Researchers in Male Fertility”, we would like to thank the International Society of Andrology (ISA), the Barn Cancer Fonden, Abcam, Barnforskningen vid Astrid Lindgrens Barnsjukhus in Stockholm and the Foundation for Pediatric Endocrinology Research and Education Stockholm for supporting our 5th meeting in Djurönäset, Sweden this year.