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How is cross-disciplinary teamwork reshaping the future of stroke care?

A stroke caused by a blocked artery is one of the most time-critical emergencies in medicine. In stroke care, minutes matter — and so does precision. The difference between paralysis and recovery often comes down to how quickly, and how completely, a blood clot can be removed. At Stanford, an engineer and a physician partnered up to rethink that problem entirely.

About our guest

Jeremy Heit, MD, PhD, is a professor of radiology and of neurosurgery and the chief of neuroimaging and neurointervention at Stanford Medicine. He is a practicing diagnostic and interventional neuroradiologist who specializes in the diagnosis and minimally invasive treatment of ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke. His research focuses on the imaging evaluation and minimally invasive treatment of patients with stroke. In addition, his group is developing new minimally invasive, image-guided treatments for ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke. He completed his MD and PhD at Stanford School of Medicine, his radiology residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, and fellowship in radiology back at Stanford.

Renee Zhao, PhD, is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and, by courtesy, of bioengineering and of materials science and engineering at Stanford University, where she studies the mechanics of soft materials and biological systems. She leads the Soft Intelligent Materials Lab, where her research focuses on how mechanical forces influence biological function, particularly in the context of soft tissues, engineered biomaterials, and medical devices. Her work aims to bridge fundamental mechanics with translational biomedical engineering to inform the design of safer and more effective medical technologies. She earned her MS and PhD from Brown University and completed her post-doctoral training at MIT.

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