Stefanie sucessfully defended her PhD thesis: Congratulations

On 15th Jan Stefanie gave her thesis presentation and defended sucessfully. Her PhD thesis title is

Co-infection of human cervix organoids by HPV and Chlamydia causes unique patterns of cellular reprogramming

My research program has been accepted into the GRK2157 "3D tissue models"

Investigating Chlamydia, HPV and co-infection dynamics using human primary 3D cervical epithelial models

In this project, we aim to investigate the co-habitation and effects of HPV, Chlamydia and co-infections on the squamous and columnar epithelium of the cervix. Towards this we would first further optimize our method to produce high titers of native high-risk HPV using 3D organoid models for infection analysis. We will investigate how these complex 3D epithelial tissue models facilitate the life cycle of HPV and/or chlamydia, and how infections are established with respect to the type of cells they infect.

3D reconstruction of stratified ectocervical organoid

Wholemount staining of two-week-old ectocervical organoid immunolabelled for proliferating cells with Ki67 (red), actin cytoskeleton with Phalloidin (green), and nuclei (blue.