SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT FOR THE 2022 SSR 55^th ANNUAL MEETING

The SSR Annual Meeting is the event to attend for the latest insights in reproductive research, so be sure to mark your calendar for July 26-29.  We are planning a great program featuring some of the industry’s leading scientists and researchers, and fun networking activities.

The SSR Program Committee welcomes abstracts reporting new basic, clinical, and/or translational research findings in the field of reproduction. We encourage abstracts based on work using diverse species. You do not need to be a Member of SSR to submit an abstract.

The deadline to submit your abstract is Thursday, March 17th at 11:59 PM EST.

Submit Your Abstract HERE

There are opportunities for oral presentations and poster presentations. There will also be awards for best post-doctoral research platform and poster presentation, best pre-doctoral platform and poster presentations and best international abstracts.

Abstract Selection Process

At submission, you will be able to choose the two most appropriate categories for your presentation from the following list:

• Comparative Biology/Evolution/Exotic Species
• Contraception
• Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHAD)/Prenatal Programming/Maternal Health
• Education/Science Communication/Research Resources
• Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDC)/Toxicology
• Endocrinology: Reproductive Neuroendocrine
• Endocrinology: Steroid Hormones and their Receptors
• Environmental Impacts on Reproduction
• Epigenetic Regulation of Gene Expression
• Fertilization/Egg Activation
• Gene Editing/CRISPR
• Implantation
• Meiosis
• Oogenesis and Oocyte Maturation
• Ovarian Dysfunction
• Ovary: Corpus luteum
• Ovary: Folliculogenesis
• Parturition/Myometrium
• Placental Development & Function
• Preimplantation Embryo Development
• Reproductive Aging
• Reproductive Cancers
• Reproductive Technologies/ART/SCNT
• Reproductive Tract: Female
• Reproductive Tract: Male
• Sex Determination and Differentiation
•  Spermatogenesis
• Stem Cells and iPS Cells
• Testis
• Trophoblast Differentiation and Function
• Uterine Biology: Endometrium, Fibroids

You are able to indicate whether you would be willing, if selected, to give an Oral Presentation or Poster Flash Talk. (Note: Choosing an oral presentation or flash talk does NOT ensure you will be selected for an oral or flash talk.) Members of the Program and Awards Committees, as well as invited reviewers, will review all submitted abstracts for scientific merit and content. Outstanding abstracts that fit the topic of specific Symposia sessions will be selected by the Program Committee for oral presentation.

Approximately 50 abstracts will be selected for Oral Presentations (of 15  minutes) in the concurrent Symposia sessions; and up to 70 abstracts will be selected for poster Flash Talks (2 minutes; see below).

Oral Presentations: Oral presentations will be in-person only within each of the concurrent Symposia session. Authors selected for Oral Presentation are also requested to provide a recording of their presentation in advance, for online viewing after the conference.

Posters:

All Posters will be presented virtually (electronic versions available for online viewing by all attendees). Presenters are encouraged to also provide an audio description.  Posters will be available to view online throughout the meeting.

Poster presenters at the conference in Spokane will also have the opportunity to present their poster in-person.  In-person posters will be presented during one of the morning (8:00 -10:00AM) poster sessions.  All in person presenters will also be required to submit their poster online for attendees to view.

Poster Flash Talks: Poster presenters attending the conference in-person have the option to apply for a Flash Talk. Poster Flash Talks will highlight the poster and are strictly limited to two minutes in length and a maximum of two slides

Education and Research Resources Posters: The SSR Program Committee encourages presentations on teaching methodologies, databases, and resources of interest to the reproductive biology community. These abstracts will be considered for poster presentation only. Submissions in this topic area will not count against the abstract limit for research presentations (i.e., you may present [be the first author of] both a research and an education and research resources abstract). Please contact the SSR Business Office if you have questions.

All Abstracts Must Be Submitted Online

The submission deadline is 11:59 PM (EST) on March 17th, 2022. Please see the Submission Procedures below for specific instructions. You will be able to save your submission-in-progress in the system; however, the submission must be uploaded and finalized by the submission deadline.

All authors of each abstract will receive an automated e-mail confirmation containing a submission ID number.

Notification of Acceptance
All authors will be notified by e-mail of the SSR Program Committee's decision regarding acceptance of the abstract approximately 6–7 weeks after the abstract submission deadline. For information about visas and/or formal letters of invitation, please conact administrator@ssr.org.  

Publication
The SSR no longer publishes abstracts in a special issue of its journal, Biology of Reproduction. The abstracts will be available electronically for download to Annual Meeting participants on the SSR website, and in the annual meeting app.

Rules Governing Submission of Abstracts

1. General Requirements: Data and conclusions presented at the meeting must be based on the same research described in the submitted abstract. It is expected that the abstract and presentation will contain new and unpublished information. Each co-author must agree in principle with the information and conclusions contained within the abstract.

2. SSR Membership: Membership in SSR is not a prerequisite for submission of an abstract. (Note: SSR Trainee Membership is a prerequisite for consideration for the SSR Trainee Travel Award, Trainee Research Awards, USDA–NIFA–AFRI Merit Awards, and Lalor Foundation Merit Awards.

3. Authorship: An individual may be first (presenting) author on no more than two abstracts. An individual may be selected to present only one abstract as an oral talk at the meeting and abstracts not selected for oral presentation will be expected to be presented by the first author as a poster. However, an author's name may appear on multiple abstracts as a co-author. Every author must have a unique e-mail address at which they may be contacted. All authors will be notified when the abstract is submitted, as well as of the committee’s decision of acceptance/rejection, and mode of presentation (oral/flash talk/poster). Please remember to contact co-authors prior to submission. The SSR Business Office will check first authors prior to review and will contact you if you are listed as first author on more than two abstracts; you will be asked to either confer with your co-authors and change the first author of the abstracts over the limit of two (requiring the new first author to confirm expected attendance at the Annual Meeting) or you will be asked to withdraw abstracts in excess of the limit of two. The Program Committee will not make this choice for you.

4. Presentation: The first author must present the abstract. Any exception must be approved by the Chairs of the Program Committee more than one week prior to the start of the meeting. Only an existing co-author of the abstract will be considered an acceptable replacement, and that co-author cannot be presenting another oral presentation at this meeting (with the exception of a flash talk).

5. Meeting Attendance: Submission of an abstract constitutes an in-principle agreement that the presenting author will register and attend the meeting to present the abstract if the abstract is accepted for an Oral Presentation or a Poster Flash Talk.  Registration: The presenting author must register for the Annual Meeting before the registration deadline. If the presenting author has not registered by this deadline and is chosen for an Oral Talk or for a Poster Flash Talk presentation, the meeting staff will attempt to contact the author. If the presenting author does not respond in a timely manner, another abstract will be chosen for oral presentation or flash talk.

6. Certification: The presenting author must certify that the conditions for submission have been satisfied and that all animal and human welfare and ethical considerations have been met. Abstracts that violate these ethics will be rejected.

7. Content: Abstracts must be written in clear, concise, and grammatically correct English. The body of the abstract must contain the following:

1. statement of specific objectives or hypotheses
2. brief statement of methods, if pertinent
3. summary of results (including number of individuals per group or number of replicates per treatment), pertinent data, and statistical analyses
4. statement of conclusions

Please view the sample abstracts document for layout and formatting examples. Financial support may be listed at the end of the abstract but is not required. Do not use headers (e.g., objectives, methods) in your abstract. Do not put in any paragraph breaks. Do not use phrases such as "will be discussed" or "will be presented." Avoid abbreviations and acronyms, and do not cite references. Do not include tables or figures. Abstracts may not contain any type of advertising or logo, including trademark and copyright symbols.

Nomenclature: The SSR requires use of approved gene and protein nomenclature. Please refer to the Nomenclature Guidelines and Requirements for the Society's journal, Biology of Reproduction, for specific instructions for gene/protein names/symbols and correct formatting.

8. Format: Presentation Title: The title cannot exceed 150 characters. Type the title in lower case with initial letters capitalized (title case). Please use appropriate ending punctuation (period/full stop or question mark). Special characters (e.g., Greek characters) will be retained in the title. Do not use any formatting for genetic or scientific nomenclature such as superscripts, subscripts, bold and italics, they will not be retained.

 9. The Abstract—excluding title, authors, and affiliations—may not exceed 500 words. It is recommended that abstracts be created in a word processing program, then cut and pasted into the display box provided on the abstract site.

10. Competitions: Individuals wishing to be considered for the SSR Trainee Travel Award or SSR Trainee Merit Awards (SSR Trainee Research Awards, USDA–NIFA–AFRI Merit Awards, and Lalor Foundation Merit Awards) must indicate their eligibility at the time the abstract is submitted, be fully qualified to compete for each award indicated, and, as presenting author, have played a major role in the design and execution of the experiments described, analysis of the data, interpretation of the results, and writing of the abstract. The Awards Committee will select finalists on the basis of an evaluation of the abstracts submitted for competition

NOTE:

• Individuals selected for one of the above awards, must be present at the Annual Meeting to present and accept the award.
• Finalists in the Trainee Poster Competition may be selected for a Poster Flash Talk but will present for the Awards Committee Review in one of the regular poster sessions. 

11. Withdrawal: If an abstract must be withdrawn, written notice of withdrawal must be submitted to administrator@ssr.org. This notice must state the reason(s) for withdrawal of the abstract and attest that all authors agree that the abstract must be withdrawn. Notification of withdrawal of an abstract must be received not later than 1 week prior to the start of the annual meeting.

12. Disclosure of Affiliations and Conflicts of Interest: Each author must disclose any financial, personal, or professional relationships with other people or organizations that could reasonably be perceived as conflicts of interest or as potentially influencing or biasing their work. Author(s) disclosure(s) must appear on the oral abstract presentation slides or poster presentation board.