Eva Kreysing

Dr Eva Kreysing, Assistant Professor

Email: Eva dot Kreysing at warwick dot ac dot uk

During my PhD in physics at RWTH Aachen and the Research Centre Jülich, I developed surface plasmon resonance microscopy (SPRM) to characterize the cell–substrate interface. I then joined the Franze Lab at Cambridge, where I studied how tissue mechanics regulate neuronal maturation via Piezo1 activity. In September 2025, I became an Assistant Professor at the University of Warwick, where my research focuses on how neurons sense the stiffness of their environment and how this shapes their development.

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For decades, scientists have studied how chemical signals influence brain development. But only recently have we discovered that physical factors, like the stiffness of brain tissue, play a similar important role. My research examines how tissue stiffness affects the ability of neurons to form connections and initiate electrical signalling.

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Eva Kreysing

Dr Eva Kreysing, Assistant Professor

Email: Eva dot Kreysing at warwick dot ac dot uk

ORCID | Google Scholar

Plain English

Summary

Brain stiffness changes across space and time, generally increasing during development. Interestingly, neurons mature faster in softer regions, while stiffer areas delay synapse formation. But how do neurons actually sense stiffness and adjust their development? This remains an open question.
In my research, we constantly develop new techniques and approaches to explore how neurons “feel” their surroundings. We investigate how the membrane and cytoskeleton interact with and respond to mechanical cues using methods such as surface plasmon resonance microscopy, fluorescence imaging, and membrane tension measurements. By combining these with CRISPR-Cas9 knockdowns in cultured neurons, we aim to uncover how mechanosensing regulates the electrical maturation of neurons.

Kreysing scientific image

Selected publications:

Kreysing, E., Gautier, H., Mukherjee, S., Mooslehner, K. A., Muresan, L., Haarhoff, D., Zhao, X., Winkel, A. K., Borić, T., Vásquez-Sepúlveda, S., Gampl, N., Dimitracopoulos, A., Pillai, E. K., Humphrey, R., Káradóttir, R. T., Franze, K., 2024. Environmental stiffness regulates neuronal maturation via Piezo1-mediated TTR activity. bioRxiv, pp.2024-07. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.07.25.605128

Kreysing, E., Hugh, J.M., Foster, S.K., Andresen, K., Greenhalgh, R.D., Pillai, E.K., Dimitracopoulos, A., Keyser, U.F. and Franze, K., 2023. Effective cell membrane tension is independent of polyacrylamide substrate stiffness. PNAS nexus, 2(1), p.pgac299. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac299

Kreysing, E., Hassani, H., Hampe, N. and Offenhäusser, A., 2018. Nanometer-resolved mapping of cell–substrate distances of contracting cardiomyocytes using surface plasmon resonance microscopy. ACS nano, 12(9), pp.8934-8942. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.8b01396

Hassani, H. and Kreysing, E., 2019. Noninvasive measurement of the refractive index of cell organelles using surface plasmon resonance microscopy. Optics letters, 44(6), pp.1359-1362. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.44.001359

Kreysing, E., Seyock, S., Hassani, H., Brauweiler‐Reuters, E., Neumann, E. and Offenhäusser, A., 2020. Correlating surface plasmon resonance microscopy of living and fixated cells with electron microscopy allows for investigation of potential preparation artifacts. Advanced materials interfaces, 7(6), p.1901991. DOI: https:doi.org/10.1002/admi.201901991