Our Keynote Speakers

Osvaldo grew up in a beef farm in Paraguay, where his interest in bovine reproduction began. He completed his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree in 2010 at the National University of Asuncion (Paraguay). In 2016, Osvaldo concluded his Ph.D. at Ghent University (Belgium). In 2017, he started his first post-doctoral fellowship at the Ontario Veterinary College of the University of Guelph (Canada), where he focused on improving uterine health in dairy cattle by controlling inflammation around the time of parturition. From 2019 to 2023, Osvaldo was a Research Associate in a joint project between the University of Antwerp and Ghent University (Belgium) that aimed to demystify the role of uterine extracellular vesicles on fertility using a dairy cow model. As of 2024, Osvaldo is an Ad Astra Assistant Professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University College Dublin (Ireland). Osvaldo is a Diplomate of the American College of Theriogenologist, author of over 90 (A1) peer-reviewed publications, and supervisor of multiple PhD students.

Dr Pascottini will present a talk entitled "Microbiome-based therapies for restoring uterine health in domestic species."

Roberto Sartori received his Veterinary degree and Masters from School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science – São Paulo State University (1992 and 1997, respectively). His Ph.D. degree in Dairy Science was from University of Wisconsin-Madison (2002) in the area of Reproductive Physiology of Dairy Cattle. From 2004 to 2009, Roberto worked as a Researcher at Embrapa Genetic Resources and Biotechnology in Brazil. Currently, Dr. Sartori is an Associate Professor at the Department of Animal Science of the University of São Paulo (ESALQ/USP), Piracicaba, SP, Brazil. His main research interests are in physiology of reproduction in Bos taurus and Bos indicus, influence of nutrition on reproduction, reproductive biotechnologies, and reproductive efficiency in beef and dairy cattle. He has published more than 160 peer-reviewed papers with more than 5,500 citations and h-index 35.

Dr Sartori's talk is entitled "Pregnancy loss in cattle with emphasis on embryo recipients."

Dr Valentina Lodde is an Associate Professor of Animal Anatomy and Physiology at the University of Milan's Department of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Sciences. She earned her degree in Biotechnology in 2002 and a PhD in Biotechnology Applied to Veterinary Science in 2006, both from the University of Milan. She furthered the expertise through postdoctoral training at the University of Connecticut Health Center (USA).

She was awarded with the LOREAL-UNESCO for women in Science National Award in 2006 and was the recipient of the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant (Individual Fellowship program) in 2012. Dr Lodde's research focuses on mammalian female fertility, with a particular emphasis on oocyte and preimplantation embryo development in bovine species. Together with the team of the Reproductive and Developmental Biology Laboratory (ReDBioLab), she has contributed to the characterization of the morphological and functional features of oocyte growth and development in bovines, significantly advancing the optimization of protocols for in vitro oocyte culture.

Marie Saint-Dizier completed her DVM degree at the Veterinary School of Lyon (France), where Reproduction was her favourite discipline. In 2000, she completed a Master’s degree in Reproductive Physiology at the University of Paris and started her PhD at INRAE on the roles and mechanisms of action of equine Chorionic Gonadotropin in pregnant mares, under the supervision of Drs Peter Daels and Yves Combarnous. From 2004 to 2015, Marie was a lecturer in animal reproduction at AgroParisTech (Paris) and conducted her research project on the endocrine regulation of oocyte maturation in dogs. Because the maturation of dog oocytes take place in the oviduct, she started to study the physiology of this mysterious and little-known organ in the 2010s. Since 2015, Marie is a Professor at the University of Tours (France), where she’s always surrounded by dozens of students from the “Sustainability and quality in animal production” Master’s degree. At INRAE (Nouzilly), she’s the head of a sympathetic group studying the interactions between sperm/embryos and the female tract and their roles in embryo quality and pregnancy success in mammals. 

Dr Saint-Dizier will present her talk entitled "What the in vitro-produced embryo misses: an insight into the maternal environment's role in sperm selection and embryo quality."