50 abstracts were presented as posters among which 3 prevailed for their clarity, visual quality and scientific quality:

Poster awards:

. 1rst award to P Lefèvre for
Determination of genes expressed during termination of delayed implantation in the Mink (/Mustela vison/). P. Lefèvre1, D. Beaudry2, MF Palin2 and B. D. Murphy1.
1University of Montreal, St-Hyacinthe, QC, Canada
2Dairy and Swine Research and Development Centre, AAFC, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada.

. 2nd award to SA Degrelle for
Embryonic and extraembryonic abnormalities in Day-18 cloned bovine conceptuses. SA Degrelle 1, I Hue1, E. Campion1, F Jaffrezic2, G. Marot2, R Everts3, C Ducroix-Crépy4, X Vignon1, Y Heyman1, X Yang5, H. Lewin6, JP Renard1.
1UMR INRA/ENVA Biologie du Développement et Reproduction, INRA, 78350 Jouy-en-Josas, France
2INRA, Station de Génétique Quantitative et Appliquée, Jouy en Josas, 78350, France, 3Department of Animal Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
4INRA, Centre de Ressources Biologiques, 78350 Jouy-en-Josas, France,
5Center for Regenerative Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA
6Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
. 3rd award to RSF Lee for
Retention of genomic imprints and expression of imprinted genes from the appropriate allele after somatic cell nuclear transfer with ovine parthenogenetic fibroblasts. T Xiang1, N Li2, DN Wells2 and RSF Lee2.
1ViaGen Inc. Austin, Texas, USA
2AgResearch, Hamilton, New Zealand

Poster committee: 8 members from 6 countries

- President: NIEMANN Heiner
Institute for Animal Breeding, Dept. Biotechnology, Hoeltystr. 10, 31535 Neustadt, Germany

- CHAVATTE-PALMER Pascale, INRA UMR BDR, Domaine de Vilvert, 78352 Jouy en Josas cedex, France

- DI BERARDINO Dino, University, Via Cappuccini 42, 80065 Sant'Agnello, Italy

- DUFORT Isabelle, Universite Laval, 2440 Bl Hochelaga, G1K 7P4 Quebec, Canada

- JOUNEAU Alice, INRA UMR BDR, Domaine de Vilvert, 78352 Jouy en Josas Cedex, France

- LONERGAN Patrick, School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medecine
College of Life Sciences, BP University College Dublin, Dublin, Irlande

- SAINT-DIZIER Marie, 16 rue Claude Bernard, 75231 PARIS CEDEX 05, France

- REZSOHAZY René, Université catholique de Louvain, Place Croix du Sud 5 - BP 10
1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

All these abstracts were gathered in a Conference Proceedings distributed to all attendees.

Conference
The talks of the 20 invited speakers were divided into 6 sessions among which 2 interactive ones in order to favour general discussion. These 6 sessions gave rise to 6 reviews published in the Reproduction of February 2nd, 2008 (135) in the form of a" Focus on Embryogenomics”. 3 research articles were also submitted by invited speakers and included in this issue.

An editorial
Isabelle Hue and Jean-Paul Renard, Focus on mammalian embryogenomics, 117-118.

Six reviews:

A Bonnet, R Dalbiès-Tran, and M A Sirard. Opportunities and challenges in applying genomics to the study of oogenesis and folliculogenesis in farm animals, 119-128.

S L Rodriguez-Zas, K Schellander, and H A Lewin. Biological interpretations of transcriptomic profiles in mammalian oocytes and embryos, 129-139.
Veronique Duranthon, Andrew J Watson, and Patrick Lonergan, Preimplantation embryo programming: transcription, epigenetics, and culture environment, 141-150.

Heiner Niemann, X Cindy Tian, W Allan King, and Rita S F Lee, Epigenetic reprogramming in embryonic and foetal development upon somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning, 151-163.

Thomas E Spencer, Olivier Sandra, and Eckhard Wolf, Genes involved in conceptus¬endometrial interactions in ruminants: insights from reductionism and thoughts on holistic approaches, 165-179.

LeAnn Blomberg, Kazuyoshi Hashizume, and Christoph Viebahn, Blastocyst elongation, trophoblastic differentiation, and embryonic pattern formation, 181-195.

3 research papers:
Helmut Torner, Nasser Ghanem, Christina Ambros, Michael Hölker, Wolfgang Tomek, Chirawath Phatsara, Hannelore Alm, Marc-André Sirard, Wilhelm Kanitz, Karl Schellander, and Dawit Tesfaye. Molecular and subcellular characterisation of oocytes screened for their developmental competence based on glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase activity, 197-212.

S L Rodriguez-Zas, Y Ko, H A Adams, and B R Southey, Advancing the understanding of the embryo transcriptome co-regulation using meta-, functional, and gene network analysis tools,
213-224.

Katrin Mitko, Susanne E Ulbrich, Hendrik Wenigerkind, Fred Sinowatz, Helmut Blum, Eckhard Wolf, and Stefan Bauersachs, Dynamic changes in messenger RNA profiles of bovine endometrium during the oestrous cycle, 225-240.