HISTORY
History of the International Conference on Boar Semen Preservation
The International Conference on Boar Semen Preservation (ICBSP) has been organized periodically since 1985. This is the 10th edition, after nine conferences being held in Europe, North America and Australia. The Conference has been dedicated to the preservation of pig semen and its use for artificial insemination, with the aim to foster a close collaboration between Industry and Academia worldwide. Different topics have included: liquid preservation of pig semen, sperm cryopreservation, microbial growth in semen, composition of extenders/preservation media (removal of antibiotics), optimization of artificial insemination (fixed-time AI, post-cervical AI…), boar welfare… Let’s talk about a little more on the history of the International Conference on Boar Semen Preservation.
The beginnings
The first conference was organized amid a growing interest in swine reproduction in the 1980s, although not much attention was being paid to the male and semen preservation technology. On that time, artificial insemination was being gradually more used in swine, yet it was not expanded as much as in cattle (Johnson; Reprod Domest Anim 2011;46 Suppl 2:35-38). The main interest of the first conference was sperm cryopreservation, given the discovery of glycerol in 1959 and the progress made in the UK by Christopher Polge in the 1970s, which was then extended to other European countries and America. Sperm cryopreservation in pigs, in contrast to the case of cattle, was not routinely used in the 1980s, as either is at present.
In the birth of the ICBSP, Larry Johnson, an American researcher working for the US Department of Agriculture, and Kjell Larsson, a professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences played a crucial role when they met in the conference of the International Pig Veterinary Society (IPVS) in Ghent (Belgium) in 1984. Both they thought that it would be good to arrange a conference exclusively focused on cryopreserved pig sperm. The first conference was held in Uppsala (Sweden) in August 1985, lasted three days and gathered 50 researchers from 15 countries. From then onwards, conferences have always lasted for three days and have been scheduled in August. A main interest for this first conference was the increase of the reproductive performance of frozen-thawed pig sperm, given that the fertility rates achieved at that time appeared to have reached a plateau. The title of the conference was, for that reason, ‘First International Conference on Deep Freezing of Boar Semen’. The conference approached, through five separate sessions, both basic and applied science, as not only did it review the production of sperm cells, their structure, cryotolerance and impact of cold shock on sperm, but also tackled freezing media and protocols, in vitro evaluation of sperm quality and fertility, and practical aspects of commercialization of frozen semen.
The evolution of the congress
The organizers of the first conference later thought that this event would much benefit from broadening the scope, also encompassing fresh/liquid storage, artificial insemination, and management issues. The name of the conference was thus changed to International Conference on Boar Semen Preservation (ICBSP), and was set to take place every four or five years. The second conference, which was dedicated to the memory of Dr. Kjell Larsson – the co-founder of ICBSP who passed away at a very young age in 1989 -, was held in Beltsville, Maryland (US) in 1990, with 80 delegates from 17 countries attending. The scientific program diversified and included lectures on liquid storage of pig semen, sperm cryopreservation and the concerns of swine AI practitioners in various countries. Also, the meeting served to strengthen the collaboration between participants. The tradition then continued with the third conference in Neustadt (Germany) in 1995; the fourth again in Beltsville, Maryland (USA) in 1999; the fifth in Doorweth (The Netherlands) in 2003, the sixth in Alliston, near Guelph (Canada) in 2007, with the proceedings being dedicated to Christopher Polge, who also supported the Conference and passed away in 2006; the seventh in Bonn (Germany) in 2011, and the eight in Champaign, Illinois (USA), the conference thus returning to the USA after 15 years. This establishing practice of holding a conference in Europe and another in America changed in 2019, as the 9th conference was celebrated, for the first time, in Australia (Chateau Elan, The Hunter Valley, NSW), with the purpose of attracting participants from the Asia-Pacific region.