This week at the Progress Educational Trust (17 May 2012)

Plans for the Progress Educational Trust (PET)'s 2012 annual conference are proceeding apace. PET is pleased to announce that the conference will be entitled 'Fertility Treatment: A Life-Changing Event?', and will take place on Wednesday 28 November 2012 at University College London's Institute of Child Health. The conference will address the impact of mothers' and fathers' lifestyles upon conception, upon the success of fertility treatment, and upon the health of the resulting child.

Speakers and chairs at the conference will include Jacky Boivin (Professor of Health Psychology at Cardiff University), Nick Macklon (Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Southampton), Dr Allan Pacey (Chair of the British Fertility Society, pictured left), Peter Taylor (Healthcare Policy Adviser at the Cooperation and Competition Panel for NHS-Funded Services), and Zita West (Founder of the Zita West Clinic). Booking is now open on the conference webpage here, and details of sessions and further speakers will be added in coming months. A variety of conference-related material will also be published in BioNews, PET's free weekly digest of news and comment on assisted conception, genetics and embryo/stem cell research.

While PET firms up details of its conference, several organisations in the charity's orbit have just held their own annual events. One such organisation is the British Infertility Counselling Association (BICA), whose annual study day - this year entitled 'What About the Men? Meeting Men's Needs During the Infertility Journey' - was attended by PET Director Sarah Norcross. As its title suggests, this event focused on the impact of infertility upon men, and upon men's experiences of fertility treatment. Among the many interesting presentations was one by the photographer Aaron Deemer, about an ongoing project in which he photographs the various rooms and settings in which men are expected to produce semen samples as part of fertility assessment and treatment. Olivia Montuschi, Cofounder of the Donor Conception Network, discusses Aaron's presentation in her piece 'Please make yourself uncomfortable', while Sarah will be writing up her thoughts on BICA's study day in a forthcoming edition of the Journal of Fertility Counselling.

Another organisation that has just held its annual conference is the Society for Genomics, Policy and Population Health (SGPPH). This year's conference, entitled 'Personalised Medicine and the Communication of Genetic Risk', was attended by PET Communications Officer Sandy Starr and BioNews Volunteer Writer Naomi Moskovic. The conference was of particular interest to PET because it focused on pharmacogenetics, a subject addressed at last year's PET debate 'Will Pharmacogenetics Lead to Colour-Coded Medicine?'. Speakers at the SGPPH conference included Dr Christine Patch, who previously spoke at the PET conference 'Does Genetics Matter? Help, Hype and the New Horizon of Epigenetics', and who has also worked with PET in her capacity as a former Chair of the British Society for Human Genetics.

Yet another annual event, the British Science Association's two-day Science Communication Conference, was attended by PET/BioNews Genetics Editor Dr Rebecca Hill. The theme this year was 'Impact', with the conference addressing how the impact of public engagement activities can best be measured, and what the impact agenda means for science. Rebecca has also been busy organising this week's Association of British Science Writers debate 'What Is Science News, and Who Decides?'. The debate was chaired by science writer and broadcaster Connie St Louis (who has previously both spoken at PET events and written for BioNews), and featured speakers including the Wellcome Trust's Head of Communications Mark Henderson (who was formerly Science Editor at The Times newspaper, and who has also spoken at PET events and written for BioNews).

Finally, and concluding the theme of annual occasions, PET would like to congratulate Rachel Cutting - Prinicipal Embryologist of the Assisted Conception Unit at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital's Jessop Wing - on being named Healthcare Scientist of the Year, an award given annually by the UK Government's Department of Health. PET is delighted to see a practitioner of embryology receive such a distinguished accolade, not least because one of the charity's founders - Dr Virginia Bolton - is herself an embryologist.