Event
CHBE Seminar: Dr. Kimberly Stroka, UMD
Friday, September 26, 2025
11:00 a.m.
Room 2108 Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Building
Patricia Lorenzana
301-405-1935
plorenza@umd.edu
“Quantitative assessment of mechanical, phenotypic, and functional heterogeneities in engineered brain microvascular systems”
Abstract: The cell-cell junctions of the endothelial cells in the blood-brain barrier (BBB) regulate numerous physiological processes, can break down in disease settings, and often present a barrier to drug delivery. Our work has demonstrated alterations in brain endothelial cell-cell junction phenotypes in response to biochemical and biomechanical cues. We hypothesized that induced pluripotent stem cell-derived brain endothelial cells (iBMECs) exposed to the same extracellular environment can demonstrate spatial and temporal phenotypic and mechanical heterogeneities, and that these heterogeneities have functional relevance. Our goal was to use a unique combination of bioengineering tools to explore this hypothesis in an engineered blood-brain-barrier microsystem. Our Python-based Junction Analyzer Program (JanaP), in conjunction with a local permeability assay, fluorescent imaging of dynamic junctions, and atomic force microscopy mapping, provides the ability to not only quantify cell-cell junction phenotypes in response to biological and mechanical microenvironment perturbations, but also to assess the relationship between local cell-cell junction phenotype, junction mechanics, and region-specific barrier function. Our work shows that iBMECs have increased Young’s modulus and increased permeability at tricellular junction regions compared to bicellular junctions or the cell body, and that this trend is conserved across different substrate stiffnesses and co-cultures with other cells (i.e., iPSC-derived astrocytes and perictyes) from the brain microenvironment. In this seminar, we will explore this biophysical link between local cell mechanical properties and cell barrier function and provide insights into the mechanobiology governing iBMEC integrity in 2D and 3D engineered BBB models.
Bio: Dr. Kimberly Stroka is currently an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Fischell Department of Bioengineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her lab explores the role of mechanical forces in physiological and pathological phenomena, including cell migration and cell barrier function. To accomplish this goal, they engineer and probe in vitro models of multi-scale biological systems using bioengineering tools such as microfabricated devices, cell co-cultures, molecular biology techniques, cell mechanics tools, and custom quantitative image processing software. Dr. Stroka received her B.S. summa cum laude in Physics in 2006 from Denison University and her Ph.D. in Bioengineering in 2011 from the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Stroka completed her postdoctoral training at The Johns Hopkins University Institute for NanoBioTechnology. Dr. Stroka’s postdoctoral and predoctoral work were supported by an NIH NRSA F32 postdoctoral fellowship, NIH T32 postdoctoral fellowship, NIH NRSA F31 predoctoral fellowship, and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Dr. Stroka was also awarded the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award as she transitioned to her faculty position at UMD. She was the recipient of the 2014 Rita Schaffer Young Investigator Award from the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), was recognized as a 2019 Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Young Innovator, and is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and NIGMS Maximizing Investigator’s Research Award (MIRA). She also received the 2017 Outstanding Young Scientist Award from the Maryland Academy of Sciences and Maryland Science Center. Over the past 10 years, Dr. Stroka has served as director of the Bioengineering Honors Program (2017-2022), as well as co-director of an NSF REU program (2017-2021), NIH MARC program (2023-present), and NCI-UMD Partnership for Integrated Cancer Research (2019-present). For her teaching and mentoring efforts, she has received the 2018 and 2019 Faculty Teaching Award from UMD's Fischell Department of Bioengineering, UMD’s Phillipp Merrill Faculty Mentor Award, the 2020 E. Robert Kent Teaching Award for Junior Faculty from the Clark School of Engineering, and the Winston Family Honors Outstanding Faculty Award. Dr. Stroka currently serves as an Associate Editor for the journal Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering and is a standing member on the BMBI study section at NIH.
