In 1996, the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Münster established a programme called 'Innovative Medical Research' (IMF) to support and implement research in the medical field. By now, it is one of the most important instruments of the faculty’s own research funding’s. Individual project grant’s should especially benefit junior scientists and strengthen interdisciplinary research ideas and cooperations.

With her pilot project 'Epigenomic profiling of human spermatogonial stem cell subpopulations in patients with normal and impaired spermatogenesis', CRU326 member Dr. Sara Di Persio (P6) sucessfully received a IMF funding. Supported by the CRU326 PIs Prof. Dr. Martin Dugas (CP) and Dr. Juanma. Vaquerizas (P7), the main goal of her project is to establish a protocol to sort the various spermatogonial subpopulations present in the human testis. These will be frist identified using single cell RNA-sequencing analyses and subsequently examined for their specific chromatin characteristics using the CUT&RUN-system.

In perspective, S. Di Persio aim to apply the newly developed protocol to compare chromatin characteristics of different spermatogonial subpopulations in patients with normal and impaired spermatogenesis. The project is scheduled for a total duration of one year, starting in February 2021 and was funded with €14,000 for consumables.

Congratulations and all the very best for the whole team!