Bachelor's & Master’s Portal

Here you will find up-to-date details of BSc and MSc project titles and descriptions, supervisor contact details and links to research group webpages.

Students should register their interest in a project by contacting the respective PI and include their CV/resume.

Master’s Project Information:

Details of currently available MSc thesis projects can be found below:

Date of post – 20th January 2022
Project title: Identifying innate immune cell-derived contributions to salamander limb regeneration
Research group: Regenerative Immunology
Supervisor/contact: Nicholas [dot] Leigh [at] med [dot] lu [dot] se

Project description: Salamanders have the ability to regenerate entire limbs after amputation. This process relies on the formation of a blastema, a pool of progenitor cells that is formed in response to amputation. We know that innate immune cells are required for blastema progenitor cell formation, but are lacking an understanding of the immune cell processes and functions that are required for inducing and maintaining these progenitors cells. This project will delve into innate immune cell function, establishing in vitro and in vivo systems test innate immune cell function in regeneration. This will be coupled with next generation sequencing based approaches to understanding the consequences of perturbing immune cell function. This will lead to an understanding of how the immune systems is able to promote remarkable feats of regeneration.

Date of post – 20th January 2022
Project title: Engineering of human bone and bone marrow organoids
Research group: Cell, Tissue & Organ Engineering
Supervisor/contact: Paul [dot] Bourgine [at] med [dot] lu [dot] se

Project description: Our lab has developed advanced bioengineering techniques offering the generation of human organoids. Inspired from developmental processes, human mesenchymal cell lines can be programmed to form cartilage, bone and bone marrow tissues in vitro and in vivo. Our objective is to identify the cells and factors that are essential in the engineering process. This can be achieved by gain/loss of functions study and the analysis of possible functional impacts on generated organoids. Multiples techniques are being used (flow cytometry, microscopy, gene editing, animal models, 3D culture systems, cell culture, spatial-omics) to compile human-specific information. We are looking for enthusiastic candidates with an healthy ambition to discover. Candidates with bioinformatic skills are also encouraged to apply, for transcriptomic analysis of human dataset.

Date of post – 4th February 2022
Project title: Reprogramming towards hemogenic cells with polycistronic vectors 
Research group: Cell Reprogramming and Immunity
Supervisor/contact: Rita [dot] Alves [at] med [dot] lu [dot] se

Project description: Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are multipotent, self-renewing cells that reside in the bone marrow and give rise to all blood cell-types, being widely used in curative transplantation. However, low cell numbers obtained from donors cannot meet current demands, and expansion of HSCs in vitro is still a challenging process. One potential solution is to use direct cell reprogramming to generate high numbers of donor compatible HSCs. We have identified a combination of three transcription factors sufficient to reprogram human fibroblasts into hemogenic precursor cells with HSC potential. Nonetheless, the efficiency of reprogramming is still low, and we are now focused on developing new strategies to improve this approach. We hypothesize that by delivering the three transcription factors in polycistronic vectors will increase the number and quality of the resulting reprogrammed cells. Important experimental approaches will include molecular cloning, flow cytometry, fluorescence-activated cell sorting, gene expression profiling, colony-forming cell assays and cellular transplantation.

References: Gomes A. et al., Cooperative Transcription Factor Induction Mediates Hemogenic Reprogramming, Cell Reports, 2018; Silvério-Alves R., Hemogenic Reprogramming of Human Fibroblasts by Enforced Expression of Transcription Factors,  , 2019.

Date of post – 4th February 2022
Project title: Dendritic cell reprogramming in cancer immunotherapy
Research group: Cell Reprogramming and Immunity
Supervisor/contact: Olga [dot] Zimmermannova [at] med [dot] lu [dot] se

Project description: Project description: Cancer development entails close crosstalk between tumor cells and immune system. However, the effective activation of anti-tumor immunity strongly depends on cancer immunogenicity and effective presentation of tumor antigens to the immune system. Genetic mutations in tumor cells result in the accumulation of specific tumor antigens, however, increased cell heterogeneity, downregulation of antigen presentation or inhibition of immune cell infiltration allows cancer cells to evade immune control.

For the first time, direct cell reprogramming offers exciting opportunities to overcome these challenges. We recently identified a combination of transcription factors sufficient to reprogram fibroblasts into antigen-presenting dendritic cells (DCs), providing a new strategy to set in motion antigen-specific immune responses. Importantly, we demonstrated that a similar combination can impose antigen presentation directly in cancer cells, and generate functional tumor-antigen presenting cells able to prime anti-tumor immune responses. Ultimately, the project aims to develop a novel cancer immunotherapy by reprogramming cancer cells to become traitors to their kind. The goal is to prove that DC reprogramming factors makes cancer cells become antigen-presenting dendritic cells, bypassing cancer evasion mechanisms in an off-the-shelf, completely personalized therapy system. 

The current project focuses on reprogramming of primary human cancer tissues in traditional 2D-cultures and using patient-derived 3D-organoid models allowing reconstruction of tumor microenvironment and prediction of patient-specific therapy responses. Key experimental approaches will include molecular cloning, flow cytometry, cell reprogramming, high-content automated image acquisition and analysis, population and single cell RNA sequencing, generation and culture of human primary tumor-derived organoids, and functional assays evaluating cytokine production, antigen presentation and cell migration.

Reference: Rosa & Pires et al. Direct reprogramming of fibroblasts into antigen-presenting dendritic cells. Science Immunology, featured in the cover of December issue 2018.

Bachelor’s Project Information:

Details of currently available BSc thesis projects can be found below:

Date of post – 20th January 2022
Project title: Engineering of human bone and bone marrow organoids
Research group: Cell, Tissue & Organ Engineering
Supervisor/contact: Paul [dot] Bourgine [at] med [dot] lu [dot] se

Project description: Our lab has developed advanced bioengineering techniques offering the generation of human organoids. Inspired from developmental processes, human mesenchymal cell lines can be programmed to form cartilage, bone and bone marrow tissues in vitro and in vivo. Our objective is to identify the cells and factors that are essential in the engineering process. This can be achieved by gain/loss of functions study and the analysis of possible functional impacts on generated organoids. Multiples techniques are being used (flow cytometry, microscopy, gene editing, animal models, 3D culture systems, cell culture, spatial-omics) to compile human-specific information. We are looking for enthusiastic candidates with an healthy ambition to discover. Candidates with bioinformatic skills are also encouraged to apply, for transcriptomic analysiy of human dataset.