ASMB 2027 Workshop

Fibroblasts in Context: Disentangling Identity, State, and Crosstalk in
Health and Disease

February 21-23, 2027

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (Cincinnati, Ohio, USA)

Meeting Chairs: Anne-Karina Perl, PhD
Professor, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and
Davy Vanhoutte, PhD
Assistant Professor, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

More about the workshop...

The American Society for Matrix Biology Fibroblast Workshops have helped shape the field over the past decade—first by establishing fibroblasts as central drivers of matrix remodeling, and more recently by revealing their remarkable heterogeneity across tissues and disease contexts.

Building on this foundation, the 2027 workshop will move the field forward by addressing a critical next question: what does fibroblast diversity actually do?

Emerging evidence suggests that fibroblasts are not simply diverse cell populations, but coordinated systems that organize tissue behavior—integrating structural, signaling, metabolic, and inflammatory functions to define local cellular niches. In this view, diversity is not the endpoint—it is the mechanism that enables control.

This workshop will bring together investigators across organ systems and disciplines to develop a unifying, cross-organ framework for fibroblast biology. Through focused discussions, short talks selected from abstracts, and close interaction between trainees and established leaders, we aim to identify shared principles, challenge existing assumptions, and define the next phase of the field.
If you are interested in shaping how fibroblast biology is conceptualized—and ultimately how it is targeted in disease and regeneration—this workshop is designed for you.