Connecting Tissues and Investigators: Fibrosis in Pathology (Fibrosis ARC Program)

Co-Directors

Xaralabos (Bob) Varelas, PhD (BIOCHEM) and Maria Trojanowska, PhD (MED); thru 2024, Irving Bigio, PhD (ENG)

Synopsis

The Fibrosis ARC-Program started as an ARC in 2018 and has brought together a community of investigators that spans the two campus of Boston University to study and discuss research related to tissue fibrosis.

Aberrant fibrogenesis or fibrosis is a common response to chronic tissue injury and is a process known to contribute to a wide-range of diseases with high mortality, including interstitial lung diseases, liver cirrhosis, kidney diseases, heart. Thus, insight into the causes and consequences of fibrosis and methods to detect fibrosis at early stages is critically important. The fibrosis ARC program has offered a venue for seminars and discussions that have focused on fibrosis related studies, with the goal to drive collaborative studies focused on improving diagnostics and therapies for fibrosis. Research from ARC-initiated studies has been very successful, leading to numerous publications and grants. Notable discoveries include identification of important cell populations that associate with fibrosis across several organs and tissues(e.g.,lung,skin,kidney and adipose tissue) along with optimized new imaging techniques for diagnosing scleroderma or kidney fibrosis associated with transplants.The program has facilitated cross campus collaborations and bridged the use of new methods and technologies to translational clinical studies. Group meetings and seminars have included researchers internal and external to Boston University, which has helped build strong research teams that will continue to work together.Our goal is to keep the fibrosis research community together and continue making research impact in this important field of study.

Participating Members (as of 2025)