Harvard College

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Inc.

The United States of America, As Represented by the Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services

The University of Chicago

Boston University

Iit Research Institute

Ramaswamy Krishnan

Jeffrey J Fredberg

Chan Young Park

David A Weitz

Julian Solway

James P Butler

Bela Suki

Fei Liu

Justin Mih

Daniel Tschumperlin

David Maloney

David McCormick

Jae Hun Kim

Joseph Hall

Niccole Schaible

Allen Ehrlicher

Nickolai Dulin

Diane Luci

Disclosed herein is a class of molecules termed remodilins that are effective in treating asthma, pulmonary fibrosis, and associated disorders. The molecules ameliorate asthma and pulmonary fibrosis symptoms by various mechanisms, including inhibiting airway smooth muscle contractile protein accumulation, reducing airway constrictor hyperresponsiveness, inhibiting bronchial fibroblast transformation into myofibroblasts, and/or treating or preventing airway or pulmonary fibrosis.

Remodilins for airway remodeling and organ fibrosis

Provided herein are systems for determining a stretch condition of a tissue and assessing the stiffness of the tissue. Also provided herein are methods for using the systems for measuring stiffness of a tissue, assessing the effect of an agent on a tissue, and identifying subjects having a disease or disorder associated with increased or decreased stiffness of a tissue.

System and method for determining a physiological condition of biological tissue

A platform for biological assays includes a base substrate providing structural support to the platform, at least one surface of the base substrate coated with position markers, a first deformable layer positioned on top of the base substrate, and a second deformable layer positioned on top of the first deformable layer, the second deformable layer embedded with deformation markers.

Deformable platforms for biological assays

Embodiments provide techniques for measuring and characterizing the dynamics of cell traction forces. Tunable elastic gel substrates can be disposed in multi-well plates. The gels can be of a uniform predetermined thickness. A multi-well plate can be loaded with gels of different shear moduli. An array of punch indenters can be attached to a loading platen such that the each indenter is aligned to a gel substrate. The indenters can apply tensile or compressive strains to the gel substrates. The magnitude, duration, and frequency of the strain can be controlled by a motor assembly coupled to a control system. The apparatus can be disposed in an incubator for long term cell culture experiments. The cell culture can be observed while a strain is applied. A ring-shaped indenter can be mounted on a microscope, coaxial to the objective lens, and lowered by a calibrated amount onto the underlying gel.

Bio-matrix stretcher

Growing community of inventors

Boston, MA, United States of America

Ramaswamy Krishnan