Kristiana Kandere-Grzybowska,
Ph.D.
Senior Research Fellow, IBS
Adjunct Professor, UNIST
Biography
Kristiana Kandere-Grzybowska
graduated summa cum laude in biology from the College of Saint Rose (Albany,
NY, USA) in 1998. She obtained a doctoral degree in biochemistry from Tufts
University School of Medicine (Boston, MA, USA) in September 2003 (with T.C.
Theoharides). From 2003-2006 she was a Department of Defense (DOD) postdoctoral
fellow (with G. G. Borisy) at Northwestern University (Chicago, Illinois, USA).
From 2006-2014 she was a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of
Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University and worked with
Prof. Bartosz A. Grzybowski. She joined IBS Center for Soft and Living Matter
in 2015.
Scientific Interests: molecular dynamic live cell imaging, cell and cytoskeleton micropatterning via micro/nano-fabrication;
intracellular/cytoskeleton dynamics, and cancer cell motility; interactions of
nanomaterials with biological systems, mixed-charge nanomaterials with
cancer-specific cytotoxicity.
Highlights of Scientific Contributions: Kandere-Grzybowska pioneered the microetching
method (also called Wet Stamping, or WETS)
for cell micropatterning that is compatible with various high-resolution
live-cell imaging modalities, such as wide-field digital fluorescence, confocal
and total internal reflection (TIRF) microscopies (Nature Methods, 2005). She and colleagues then used WETS to study intracellular cell
motility sub-processes, such as cell polarization (Soft Matter, 2010), microtubule guidance (J. Cell Sci., 2012), and cell micromechanics (Adv. Mater., 2012) in micropatterned cells with
geometrically-defined shapes (also called Treadmills). WETS were also used to demonstrate that asymmetric continuous
ratchet-shape patterns (Ratchets) direct cell motions. Specifically, cancer
cells' motions were directed in the direction opposite to that by normal cells
leading to partial sorting out of mixed cell populations (Nature Physics, 2009). Finally, using continuous linear patterns
(or Lines or 1D microtracks) generated by WETS
revealed that metastatic cells, but not non-metastatic cells, use
cell-intrinsic, predator-like Lévy walk patterns (Nature Communications, 2018).
Kandere-Grzybowska is an author of 34 publications cited 3020 times
(based on Google Scholar) with an h-index 23.
Her more recent work
focuses on understanding the cellular mechanisms of cancer-specific, selective
cytotoxicity of mixed-charge gold nanoparticles (Angew. Chem., 2016). A combination of chemistry (nanoparticle
synthesis/functionalization), nanomaterial characterization (DLS, ICP-MS), and
cell biological approaches (live-cell confocal microscopy, bio-TEM, proteomics)
are used to investigate selective targeting and destruction of the endolysosomal
system in cancer cells (Nat.
Nanotechnol.,2020; Acc. Mater. Res, 2020).
Recent publications:
Siek, M.,
Kandere-Grzybowska, K.* & Grzybowski, B.A.* Mixed-Charge, pH-Responsive
nanoparticles for selective interactions with cells, organelles, and bacteria.
[Review] Acc. Mater. Res. 1, 3,
188–200 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1021/accountsmr.0c00041
Borkowska, M., Siek,
M., Kolygina, D., Sobolev, Y., Lach, S., Kumar, S., Cho, Y.K, Kandere-Grzybowska, K.* & Grzybowski, B.A.*
Targeted crystallization of mixed-charge nanoparticles in lysosomes induces
selective death of cancer cells. Nat.
Nanotechnol. 15, 331–341 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-020-0643-3 [COVER ART] https://rdcu.be/b21hN
Huda, S., Weigelin,
B., Wolf, K., Tretiakov, K., Wilk, G., Iwasa, M., Banaszak, M., Soh, S.,
Makurath, M., Friedl, P., Borisy, G.G., Kandere-Grzybowska, K.* &
Grzybowski, B.A.*. Lévy-like movement patterns of metastatic cancer cells
revealed in microfabricated systems and implicated in vivo. Nat. Commun. 9,
4539 (2018). https://rdcu.be/barxd