Congratulations to Esha Chopra, an undergraduate student researcher, who has received the MTech ASPIRE Award to support her research in fall 2023! Great job, Esha, and thank you to MTech for their support!

Congratulation to PhD student Ian Smith, who has been awarded a graduate fellowship from the International Foundation for Ethical Research (IFER) for his project entitled “A Spheroid Angiogenic Vascularization Microfluidic Device to Replace Metastasis-Based Mouse Models.” This fellowship will provide $15,000 towards Ian's research project over the next year. Congrats, Ian!

Congratulations to Dr. Li Yan and former undergrad researcher Cole Dwiggins, who are co-first authors on a new paper accepted for publication in the journal Bioengineering! Current undergrad researcher Udit Gupta is also a co-author. The paper is titled "A rapid-patterning 3D vessel-on-chip for imaging and quantitatively analyzing cell-cell junction phenotypes" and is an invited article for a special issue titled "Micro- and Nanoscale Technologies in Organs-on-Chip and Drug Delivery Systems." Congrats and great job, team!

If you are interested in quantifying cell-cell junction phenotypes in 3D vessels from confocal images, check this paper out!

Great job to William Frank-Rodriguez, who presented his summer research project at the UMSTAR poster session today! William joined us from Puerto Rico this summer as he participated in the 10-week UMSTAR program at UMD. He was mentored by MD/PhD student Ken Brandon. We were very thankful to have him in the lab this summer and look forward to seeing what fantastic things lie ahead for him!

Congratulations to PhD student, Ian Smith, who successfully defended his PhD proposal today and advanced to PhD candidacy! We are excited to see the amazing things Ian will accomplish in the next 2 years!

Dr. Li Yan represented the lab this week at the International Society for Stem Cell Therapy Conference in Boston, MA! She presented a poster titled, "Matrix stiffness regulates the tight junction and local barrier  properties in tricellular regions of an iPSC-derived BBB model."

We are excited that our paper titled, "Biomaterial stiffness regulates the tight junction phenotypes and local barrier properties in tricellular regions in an iPSC-derived BBB model" has been accepted for publication in Acta Biomaterialia! Congratulations to first author Dr. Li Yan, along with co-authors Dr. Becca Moriarty (PhD alum), Cole Dwiggins (undergrad alum), Udit Gupta (current undergrad in lab), Jae Jung (undergrad alum), and Ken Brandon (current MD/PhD student in lab). Great job, team!

Check out the paper here.

We are excited that our paper titled, "The multifaceted role of aquaporins in physiological cell migration" has been accepted for publication in the American Journal of Physiology Cell Physiology! Congrats to first author, Ian Smith, a PhD student in the lab!

Dr. Ariana DeCastro, who defended her PhD dissertation this spring, was hooded by Dr. Stroka today at the Clark School graduate commencement ceremony! Huge congratulations to Ariana!

Stroka lab undergrads Hiya Sawhney (left below, graduated in December 2022) and Allison Moses (right below, '23) walked at commencement today! Congrats to both of you! Hiya is currently a postbac researcher at the NIH and is in the process of applying to MD/PhD programs. Allison will be pursuing her PhD in Bioengineering (here at UMD!) starting this fall... we are thankful that we don't have to say good-bye!