Dr. Michael Melzer

Dr. med. Michael Karl Melzer is a medical resident at the Department of Urology (director: Prof. Bolenz) and a postdoctoral fellow as well as junior group leader at the Institute of Molecular Oncology and Stem Cell Biology (IMOS; director: Prof. Kleger).

During his doctoral thesis from 2015-2020 Dr. Melzer focused on the interplay of oncolytic viruses with T cell receptor transgenic T cells in an acute myeloid leukemia model. Starting in 2019, he focuses as a postdoctoral researcher and later on as a junior group leader on the differentiation and application of different human pluripotent stem cell models for pancreatic differentiation and studying carcinogenesis from an untransformed genetic background. Additionally, he characterized a porcine urinary bladder organ culture model for its versatility to be employed in pancreatic differentiation and carcinogenesis. He got rewarded with the Ursula-Händel Animal Welfare Award by the DFG in 2022. Building on his knowledge about pluripotent stem cell differentiation he also started investigating the potential of PSCs to study urothelial differentiation and carcinogenesis using a fluorescence reporter model. Furthermore, Dr. Melzer is employing patient-derived organoid models from urothelial cancer to predict patients` treatment response in vitro.

Dr. Melzer was member of the Clinician Scientist Program of Ulm University from 2020-2023 and member of the Else Kröner Fresenius Foundation (EKFS) funded research school for clinicians (Head: Prof. Kleger) from 2021-2024. Since 2024, he is junior speaker within the EKFS-funded research school for physicians.