  When cellular contractile forces are central to pathophysiology, these forces
comprise a logical target of therapy. Nevertheless, existing high-throughput
screens are limited to upstream signaling intermediates with poorly defined
relationship to such a physiological endpoint. Using cellular force as the
target, here we screened libraries to identify novel drug candidates in the
case of human airway smooth muscle cells in the context of asthma, and also in
the case of Schlemm's canal endothelial cells in the context of glaucoma. This
approach identified several drug candidates for both asthma and glaucoma. We
attained rates of 1000 compounds per screening day, thus establishing a
force-based cellular platform for high-throughput drug discovery.
