An MSc thesis investigating the influence of rosmarinic and retinoic acid on the differentiation status of SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells received recognition following its presentation at a student scientific session.
An especially important feature of the project was that the research question originated from the student researcher. Rather than beginning with an assigned experimental topic, the student developed the initial proposal after reviewing the scientific literature and then carried the project from experimental design through laboratory work and quantitative image analysis.
The work combined cell-based pharmacology with computational analysis of phase-contrast microscopy and subsequently became part of the research trajectory leading to the PhaseContrastNeuriteAnalyzer workflow, its open dataset and the 2026 Pharmacia publication.
For MU OmicsLab, this project is an example of the type of student research we want to encourage: curiosity-driven, technically rigorous, computationally informed and capable of developing beyond the thesis itself.
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