Members of the PRECAS Project were co-organisers of the ESHRE campus event, Carrier screening and infertility testing through the lens of GenEthics, in February 2026. Here, Cathy Herbrand and Eva Van Steijvoort start the event by introducing the ESHRE members who have put it together. This included sessions on Expanded Carrier Screening in medically-assisted reproduction, chaired by Antonio Capalbo and Mariana Moura Ramos, and Implementation of ECS, chaired by Efi Constantinou and Verena Ehrbar. This event was very well attended and a great opportunity for discussion and networking.

This is Prof Nicky Hudson delivering her presentation at Fertility 26, the conference of the British Fertility Society. Her talk is based on work by the PRECAS Project, looking at the different ways that UK clinics approach using gametes tested with ECS: “Expanded carrier screening and gamete donation – understanding the complexities for UK fertility clinics”.

The PRECAS Project sponsored a stream at PET Conference, December 2025, Expanded Carrier Screening: How Is It Used? What Are the Ethical Implications? Here, Cathy Herbrand completes the four presentations about expanded carrier screening, implementation and policy in the UK before the four presenters discuss ECS and take questions. We thank Sara Levene, Jackson Kirkman-Brown and Heidi Mertes for taking part, and Sarah Norcross and PET for organising it. You can read a review of this session by PET Science Editor Jen Willows, and get a recap of the live event by looking at the PET Podcast of the ECS stream, hosted on the PET website.

In November 2025, we attended the The British Society for Genetic Medicine (BSGM) annual conference where PRECAS PI Prof Cathy Herbrand was presenting a poster. It looks at what professional stakeholders think of preconception expanded carrier screening and the benefits in three key settings it’s used in. It was great to meet so many professionals involved in the genetics field.

In September 2025 we went to Newcastle for BSA Medoc to give a presentation on “‘Genetically incompatible’: classifying risk and shaping reproduction through new forms of genetic screening”. This looked at the use of ‘genetic compatibility test’ to describe expanded carrier screening, and exploring its implications. It was part of the Sexual and Reproductive Health stream.

In May, we presented a poster at ESHG 2025 in beautiful Milan, on the views of clinicians, policymakers and other professionals on expanded carrier screening in the UK: Offering expanded carrier screening in the UK: do professional and policy stakeholders think it is worthwhile?

We gave a talk at UK NEQAS in Manchester in January 2025 on the challenges faced by NHS fertility clinics on the use of expanded carrier screening with egg, embryo and sperm donors. The United Kingdom National External Quality Assessment Service is a not-for-profit consortium of expert centers, mostly NHS-based, providing comprehensive external quality assessment (EQA) and proficiency testing for clinical laboratories globally, ensuring accuracy in diagnostic tests. This was based on our research with UK stakeholders, led by Cathy Herbrand.

PRECAS PI Cathy Herbrand spoke at COGI Congress, November 2024, Lisbon, in the Reproductive Genetics strand, on “Offering expanded carrier screening (ECS) in the UK: do professional and policy stakeholders think it is worthwhile?” This was a discussion about the factors that influenced stakeholder’s views on whether ECS was suitable to be commercially available or available on the NHS in the UK.