Disclosed herein are methods that generally to the fields of pharmaceutical chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology and medicine. More particularly, aspects of the invention concern methods to identify a predisposition for fibrosis in a biological sample, methods of identifying agents that modulate the onset of fibrosis, methods of making a formulation that inhibits the onset or progression of fibrosis, and methods of monitoring the progression of fibrosis or the efficacy of a fibrosis treatment.