In 1969 the ICCIR held a meeting on “Immunology and Reproduction” at WHO headquarters in Geneva and elected the ICCIR Steering Committee as follows: President – K.Bratanov, Vice-President – S. Shulman, Secretary General – R. Edwards, secretary - I. Sokolovskaya, Treasurer – A. Eyquem. It was registered in Paris and in Sofia and its offices were in Sofia and Cambridge. These two events gave impetus to serious and profound research work in the field of reproductive immunology in many countries. In 1997 at the 9th Symposium Rayna Georgieva, Institute of Biology and Immunology of Reproduction “Acad.K.Bratanov”, Bulgarian Academy of Scienses, was elected President of ICCIR..

In 1975 at the 3th Symposium in Varna the International Society of Immunology for Reproduction (ISIR), at the proposal of K. Bratanov and other participants, was founded. K.Bratanov was its first president.

Key steps that led to the development of the new research trend:
1. spermatozoal immunogenicity was first recognised by Mechnikov as long ago as 1899
2. relationship between antisperm antibodies and infertility was first established in domestic animals (heifers) by Bratanov et al. (1949)
3. The detailed studies of Guy Voisin and his colleagues in the early 1950s demonstrated the experimental induction of autoimmune aspermatogenesis in guinea pigs, and the existence of several spermatozoal autoantigens.
4. In 1959, Rumke reported the association between the presence of anti-spermatozoa antibodies and clinical infertility in human males.
5. identification of the molecular structureof sperm surface antigens and their precise role in theinduction of infertility in both males and females - Isojima et al. (1968)
6. A defining moment in the evolution of the field of reproductive immunology comes in 1953, when Peter Medawar (Nobel Prize winner for transplantation immunology) publishes the text of his invited lecture to the British Society for Experimental Biology, where he identifies the truly paradoxical nature of the immunological relation-ship between the pregnant mother and her antigenicallyforeign foetus.
7. In 1964, Rupert Billingham published a major monograph in the New England Journal of Medicine on the role of transplantation immunity and the maternal-fetal relationship, investigating, inter alia, the uterus as an immunologically privileged site. This series of studies generates interest among immunologists and reproductive biologists and helps establishing the field of reproductive immunology. In 1971, he continues his pioneering studies of the fetus and placenta as transplants with Alan Beer. (Source: W. David Billington, Origins and evolution of reproductive immunology: a personal perspective, Journal of Reproductive Immunology. W.D. Billington served as 1st Editor-in-chief of the same journal in 1972).
It is important to mention the contribution of the ICCIR as well as of the Varna Symposia to the creation of this new for the sixties interdisciplinary trend – Reproductive Immunology and for discussing and trying to delineate the trends for its future development. Research at that period was directed to the elucidation of regulatory factors and immune mechanisms in reproduction, some aspects of unexplained infertility, IVF and the possibility for assisted reproduction , etc. (Source: ICCIR1967.COM)

The period since the 1st Symposium was long enough to be marked by a number of significant events: fundamental and clinical achievements in reproductive immunology, foundation of the International Society for Immunology of Reproduction (ISIR), the European Society for Reproductive Immunology (ESRI) and many national societies of reproductive immunology. Today, a huge army of young, intelligent and ambitious researchers all over the world investigate basic and clinical aspects of reproductive immunology. (Source: ICCIR1967.COM, Prof. Rayna Georgieva)