Melina, a third-year PhD student in Dr. Andreas Schedl’s research group, presented her work during the PhD club session on October 22nd 2025.

The team has made significant progress in understanding adrenal development and has successfully established an in vitro differentiation protocol using mouse embryonic stem cells, leading to the formation of glucocorticoid-producing adrenal aggregates. These findings were recently published in Stem Cell Reports.

The goal of Melina’s thesis is to build upon the lab’s insights into adrenal development by adapting the existing mouse model to create a human iPSC-derived adrenocortical organoid system, which will serve as a platform to study human adrenocortical biology. This system holds broad potential applications across various research fields (as outlined in the team’s recent review publication).

For those interested in learning more, Melina’s presentation is available on the iBV common server.

(By Melina Tedesco)