Ramaswamy Krishnan, PhD

Co-founder: Dr. Krishnan is an Associate Professor in Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is an academic scientist and entrepreneur with a successful record of turning laboratory-based biomechanical methods into commercial assays for drug screening and validation. He is also an expert of asthma biomechanics.  Dr. Krishnan has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles in the field of Cell and Tissue Mechanics, Cytoskeletal Biology, Smooth Muscle, Stretch, Lung Slices, High Throughput Screening, and Drug Discovery. 

 Recent achievements:  
1.  Dr. Robert Crapo Memorial Innovative Research Methodologies Award (2024) from the American Thoracic Society in recognition of his contributions towards new techniques and approaches that markedly enhance our understanding of the respiratory structure-function relationship.

2. Principal Investigator of an ARDF foundation grant titled, "Human precision-cut lung slice-based platform for fibrotic drug discovery." (2024-2025)

Jae H. Kim, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer: Dr. Kim is an expert in experimental and computational methods in soft tissue and cell mechanics, materials science, mechanical design and device fabrication.  

Achievements: Principal investigator on a National Institute of Health Small Business Innovation Research Award (1R43HL176301-01)  titled, "Stiffness measurements in human lung slices to evaluate therapeutic and preventive potentials of anti-fibrotic drugs." (2024)

2. Co-investigator of an Ignition Award by Boston University titled, "MechanoWell: a multi-well tool for drug discovery in lung diseases." (2023, PI: Suki)

3. Co-investigator of an Ignition Award by Boston University titled, "High throughput screening of respiratory drugs based on human lung tissue." (2022, PI: Suki)

4. Key Personnel on a National Institute of Health Small Business Innovation Research Award (R41HL147673) titled, "A universal mechanobiology tool for drug discovery in lung diseases."  (2019-2021, PI: Suki)

Bela Suki, PhD

Co-founder: Dr. Suki is a Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University. He is a world authority on lung mechanics, IPF, COPD, image analysis, computational models, and mechanotransduction, with a primary focus on the role of mechanical forces on lung extracellular matrix function.  Dr. Suki has published over 250 peer-reviewed articles in the field of Biomechanics, Mechanotransduction, Complex Systems, Network Physiology, Respiratory Physiology. His h-index is 72.

Recent achievements: 
1. Charles DeLisi Award and Lecture at Boston University (2025) that recognizes his well-cited scholarship, senior leadership, and as an inventor of transformative technologies.

2. Joseph R. Rodarte Award for Scientific Distinction (2024) from the American Thoracic Society in recognition of his contributions in the area of respiratory structure and function to the field of respiratory physiology and medicine.

Niccole Schaible, PhD

Senior Scientist: Dr. Schaible has a passion for using quantitative, engineering-based approaches to understand complex biological systems. She is skillful with a range of cell culture, tissue, and animal models and assays as well as advanced computational data analysis. Niccole has been a Postdoc and Instructor at BIDMC/Harvard Medical School, trainee on Harvard-Longwood Research Training in Vascular Surgery (NIH T32) grant and a 2017 Fellow at MIT's Impact program.