“Stem Cell-Based Leydig Cell Models for Reprotoxicity Testing and Biomedicine Applications”

Eliska Rehurkova, a Ph.D. candidate at Masaryk University, received IFER funding from 2024-2025 for her project, “Stem Cell-Based Leydig Cell Models for Reprotoxicity Testing and Biomedicine Applications.” Eliska will be creating a human-relevant model to understand the stages of male sex hormone production within the testes, recognizing the role environmental pollutants and drugs play in disrupting their levels during development. Eliska will differentiate human induced pluripotent stem cells into Leydig cells, cells of the testes that produce androgens, and transition the cells into 3D culture. She will characterize the model, validate it with select reference chemicals, and compare her findings to those of other existing model systems. Her project represents an important advancement in male reproductive toxicology, as she is developing a system that can allow for the testing of environmental pollutants and chemicals on testicular steroidogenesis in a human-relevant, animal-free way.