Jeffrey Fredberg: Flow under pressure

While most people are largely unaware of the flow of air through their lungs, an asthmatic suffering an attack battles for every breath. After years of study, scientists still aren't sure what lies at the root of this problem. Jeffrey Fredberg has pursued this question for much of his career, seeking to understand it at every level. It's a chase that's spanned his 15 years running his own nonprofi t research institute, and—after the institute was folded into the Harvard School of Public Health—all the years since. With his focus on physics and early training in fl uid mechanics, Fredberg has taken a different road than most cell biologists. Along the way, he's made some startling observations about the mechanical properties of connective tissues (1), epithelial sheets (2, 3), and individual cells (4, 5). We called him at his lab and learned what cells have in common with ketchup and coffee beans. Do you remember any formative events from your childhood? I was a great failure as a student early on. Probably I had learning disabilities, but these were unknown at the time. By the time I'd learned to compensate for whatever problems I had, I was a discouraged student, and in my sophomore year of high school I actually fl unked out. That was a pivotal event, of course, but it turned out to be one of the best things to ever happen to me because I went to a new high school. The fi rst class on my fi rst day happened to be Latin, which I had already had at my old school. So when the teacher, Mr. McCarthy, asked an elementary question of the class and no one else volunteered , I raised my hand and answered it correctly. And this teacher pointed to me and said, " Good. What's your name? " That was the fi rst positive thing that had happened to me in school, maybe ever. It was kind of a watershed moment. For the fi rst time in memory, I went home and did my homework, and from there it was straight up. I graduated top of the class. Just those few words from a kind teacher made all the difference. In what way has that experience impacted you down the road? I've used it to try to encourage people who are having their own troubles. You can overcome them. You can …