Cross-Organ Approaches to Fibrosis: From Mechanistic Insight to Therapeutic Potential

TOPICAL COLLECTIONS

Guest Editor

Miri Adler

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Dr. Miri Adler is an assistant professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, affiliated with the Department of Genetics and the Department of Immunology and Cancer Research. Her lab develops theoretical and computational tools to study tissue organization, cell communication, and disease progression. She earned her PhD in Physics and Systems Biology from the Weizmann Institute, where she uncovered biological circuit design principles, earning the Lee A. Segel Prize in Theoretical Biology. As a postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute, Yale, and MIT, she collaborated with Professors Ruslan Medzhitov and Aviv Regev. Her work introduced the concept of network hyper-motifs and led to new computational methods for studying cellular specialization using single-cell and spatial transcriptomics. Dr. Adler also advanced fibrosis research by modeling the myofibroblast–macrophage circuit, identifying “hot” and “cold” fibrosis types and potential therapeutic targets. She is a recipient of several prestigious fellowships, including the Zuckerman STEM Leadership Fellowship, EMBO, and the Alon Fellowship.

Collection Overview

Fibrosis is a pathological process involving excessive extracellular matrix deposition and disruption of normal tissue architecture. It plays a central role in chronic diseases of the liver, heart, lung, and kidney, and is a major contributor to organ failure and cancer progression. Despite growing insights, effective anti-fibrotic therapies remain limited.

This Methods Collection brings together novel experimental and computational approaches for studying fibrosis and wound healing across multiple organ systems. It includes protocols for profiling fibrotic cell states, advanced tissue imaging, in vivo and in vitro models of fibrosis, and computational frameworks for modeling cell-cell regulatory networks that drive fibrotic progression. The aim is to integrate expertise from diverse fibrotic contexts to uncover fundamental principles of fibrosis that will ultimately inform and advance therapeutic strategies.