Madalena Vaz Santos

Project name: In-vitro spermatogenesis from induced pluripotent stem cells

I will work on the development of an in-vitro culture system for human spermatogenesis. The project will focus on the generation of primordial germ cells from hiPSCs, that will subsequently be co-cultured with a feeder layer originating from human somatic testicular cells, fibroblast feeder layer or human Sertoli-cell lines (existing or also induced from hiPCSs) to induce differentiation through meiosis and spermiogenesis and complete hiPSC-derived human spermatogenesis.

I have a BSc Biology (specialization in evolutionary and developmental biology) and MSc Human and Environmental Biology (specialization in human biology) from the University of Lisbon. I have also completed a research internship on the characterization of rosette stem cells in the mouse early-embryo development in the lab of Derk ten Berge at the Erasmus MC University Medical Center.