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Professor David Gardner Reflects on Fertility Advancements at ESHRE 2025

“I attended my first ESHRE in Brussels in1986. It was the 2nd ESHRE conference ever held and was attended by around 400 people. What was evident from ESHRE 2025 (apart from the close to 14,000 delegates!), was just how far the field of human IVF has come in 40 years, and how energising and exciting such gatherings of experts from around the world can be (even if the outside temperature in Paris was >35C). 

Highlights included sessions on: 

  • The use of AI to quantitate the developmental capacity of oocytes and to enhance ovarian stimulation 

  •  The introduction of new rapid vitrification and warming protocols (which have the potential to reduce the times in takes to warm a blastocyst to 1 minute!) 

  • The ongoing push for laboratory automation 

  • The rise in clinical significance of in vitro maturation strategies 

  • Male infertility and associated health risks 

  • Advances in sperm selection 

  • Non-invasive prediction of embryo aneuploidy 

Further, there were key lectures on laboratory KPIs, ovarian aging, and not to mention the several communications short listed for Prize papers, which covered an incredible range of innovation and new technologies. 

It was wonderful to see Sharyn Stock-Meyer, Head of Diagnostics, present the FSANZ exchange lecture, and Dale Goss, Clinical Embryologist at IVFAustralia, who presented on the novel AI for the detection of sperm in testis biopsies. I was also a co-author of a further two oral presentations - one on the new and revised ESHRE/ALPHA consensus on oocyte and embryo assessment, and a study on EmbryoGlue. 

The amount of exciting content was simply overwhelming, and if you wish you can peruse all the abstracts in the June Supplement to Human Reproduction. 

Next year ESHRE will be in London – so start working on your abstracts now!