The 10th anniversary EMMA-JAX cryopreservation course has been held in Monterotondo-Rome (Italy), at the IBC-CNR “A. Buzzati-Traverso” Campus, on November 23-26, 2009. ISTT has supported this course, according to the cooperation agreement signed with EMMA, and hence, the Society was presented to all participants and teachers. Ten participants were selected among all applications received and could learn about mouse embryo and sperm cryopreservation, among other related topics. They practised state-of-the-art techniques about how to cryopreserve mouse sperm, how to do an in vitro fertilization, how to obtain and cryopreserve 2-cell IVF-derived mouse embryos and how to do vitrification. In these ten editions since 1999, more than hundred participants have attended these annual cryopreservation courses, thus contributing to the successful spreading of these techniques among many laboratories from many countries around the world.
The faculties for this course were Stanley Leibo (Univ. New Orleans, LA, USA), as Course Director; Robert Taft (The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, ME, USA); Jorge Sztein (NIAID-NIH, Rockwille, MD, USA), Kent Lloyd (Univ. California, Davis, CA, USA), Martin Fray (MRC-MGU, Harwell, Didcot, UK), Susan Marschall (IEG, Munich, Germany); Lluis Montoliu (CNB-CSIC, Madrid, Spain); and Raffaele Matteoni, Ferdinando Scavizzi and Marcello Raspa, from IBC-CNR-EMMA, Monterotondo, Italy. The instructors included Jane Farley and Sian Clemmens, from The Jackson Laboratory, and Arsenio Armagno, Daniele Iannilli, Tiziana La Penna, Ilaria Losso and the rest of cryopreservation support personnel from IBC-CNR-EMMA, Monterotondo, Italy.
