Team

Yekaterina (Kate) Miroshnikova

Group Leader. Kate received BS in Engineering from F.W. Olin College of Engineering in 2009 and a PhD in Bioengineering from the University of California Berkeley and San Francisco in 2015 where she studied the impact of extracellular matrix mechanics to cancer aggression. Kate then worked on junctional mechanics in Grenoble, France as a Whitaker postdoctoral scholar before moving to the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne, Germany as an EMBO postdoctoral fellow to study mechanobiology of epithelial stratification in homeostasis and during aging and finally as an HFSP postdoctoral fellow at the University of Helsinki in Helsinki, Finland to study nuclear and chromatin mechanics in the maintenance of genome integrity. In 2021 Kate joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH/NIDDK) in the USA as a Stadtman Tenure Track Investigator where she led a Section on Nuclear Mechanotransduction and Cell Fate Dynamics.

In 2025, Kate moved her laboratory to the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Muenster, Germany where she leads a group on Biophysical Regulation of Cell State Dynamics. The lab’s research aims to understand how cells sense and integrate mechanical and biochemical information from their environment to make decisions with respect to their state/fate. Our specific interest is to understand how the nuclear periphery, which is a physical interface and a biochemical hub of information flow between the cell-extrinsic environment and the cell-intrinsic decision-making machinery within the nucleus, contributes to cellular decision-making. We study the role of this interface to the maintenance of genome integrity, transcriptional kinetics in time, and (colorectal) cancer onset and progression. Our research and team are highly interdisciplinary across the fields of biology, physics, and medicine. Outside the lab Kate loves the sea and the mountains and enjoys road/mountain biking, tennis, bouldering, karaoke, and French food & wine.

E-mail: kate@mpi-muenster.mpg.de

Ike Zhang

Postbaccalaureate Student. Ike received his BS and MSE degree in Biomedical Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, USA with a focus in imaging and medical devices. There, he worked on deep learning algorithms for predicting delirium in the ICU using health records and acute ischemic stroke from CT imaging. In 2024, Ike joined the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, NIH under the supervision of Kate Miroshnikova as a postbaccalaureate fellow during her tenure at the NIDDK/NIH. At the NIH his research focuses on mechanical and osmotic forces acting on the nucleus and their effect on transcriptional bursting. He is now continuing this collaborative research at the Laboratory of Biological Modeling at the NIDDK under supervision of Dr. Carson Chow and Kate.

E-mail: izhang@mpi-muenster.mpg.de

Nelly Drobjazko

PhD Student. Nelly completed her Bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Osnabrück before moving to Münster to pursue a Master’s in Molecular Biomedicine. Her Master's thesis utilized FRET-based biosensors to explore the role of the LINC complex in nuclear mechanosensing. In October 2024, Nelly joined the Miroshnikova and Wickström labs as a PhD student to investigate how topological cues from the microenvironment alters nuclear mechanics and chromatin organization to control stem cell state. Outside the lab, she enjoys indoor cycling, bouldering, and spending time with her family, friends, and cats.

E-mail: nelly.drobjazko@mpi-muenster.mpg.de

Kateryna Selçuk

Postdoctoral Fellow. Kateryna obtained her BSc in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Boğaziçi University in Turkey. She then moved to ETH Zürich, where she developed a strong interest in mechanobiology during her MSc studies and continued in this field for her PhD in the lab of Prof. Viola Vogel. Her research focused on the mechanobiological mechanisms of fibronectin fibrillogenesis by human platelets, using advanced optical microscopy techniques, including super-resolution. In parallel, she employed FRET microscopy to investigate how mechanical tension in fibrillar fibronectin influences its structure-function relationship with binding partners. During her postdoctoral work at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Kateryna expanded her microscopy expertise to include time-resolved and single-molecule fluorescence approaches. In the Miroshnikova lab, she aims to apply FRET-based molecular tension sensors to study nuclear mechanics and cell fate decisions during differentiation. Outside the lab, Kateryna enjoys playing tennis, mountain biking, and exploring new places.

E-mail: kateryna.selcuk@mpi-muenster.mpg.de

Zuzana Outlá

Postdoctoral Fellow. Zuzana completed her PhD in 2025 at Charles University in Prague, where she investigated cytoskeletal crosstalk mediated by the cytolinker plectin, focusing on hepatocellular carcinoma progression. She joined the Miroshnikova Lab in June 2025 to study how tissue architecture, cell mechanics, and cell states evolve during the onset and early progression of colorectal cancer. Outside the lab, Zuzana enjoys dancing, running, and hiking.

E-mail: zuzana.outla@mpi-muenster.mpg.de

Sina Mersmann

Lab Manager. Sina completed her BTA in the beautiful Sauerland and started working at the University Hospital in Münster. From 2013-2018 she worked at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine but went than back to the University Hospital in Münster only to came back in 2025 to the newly funded group of Kate Miroshnikova. Outside the lab Sina spends her time with her horses and her cat, loves cycling and being outdoors in nature.

E-mail: sina.mersmann@mpi-muenster.mpg.de