The respirology component includes 72 researchers, 79 nurses and research professionals, as well as 80 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. This component turns out to be one of the key groupings of its kind observed in Canada and is concerned with long-term health problems of epidemic proportions at the societal level such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), sleep apnea and lung cancer.
The current pandemic has also confirmed the relevance of studying bioaerosols and their effects on human respiratory health, in addition to allowing our researchers to identify biomarkers and new therapeutic targets for COVID-19. The success of the respiratory component lies on the close collaboration existing between clinician scientists and basic researchers as well as both their research professionals’ and students’ quality. Researchers distinguish themselves through the presence of five research chairs in COPD, in pulmonary hypertension, in genomics of heart and lung diseases, in bioaerosols as well as in knowledge transfer.
Their efforts related to research and to disseminate knowledge led to the demonstration of promising results obtained in a clinical trial in pulmonary arterial hypertension assessing a therapeutic target previously identified in our centre. Our researchers have also shown the long-term effectiveness of thermoplasty as well as steering the latest international practice guides in asthma. The role of vaccination against Haemophilus infection in COPD has been clarified as well in a large clinical trial. The many advances in the understanding and treatment of these chronic respiratory diseases in our society are supported in particular by the respirology component of our world-calibre biobank, a richness of over 60,000 human samples available for the research, providing researchers the possibility of doing and to validate what they discovered directly in humans, thereby accelerating the transfer of new knowledge toward clinical care.
(Data 2021-2022)
Preferred topics
- Sleep apnea and regulation of breathing throughout life
- Asthma
- Pulmonary hypertension
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and environmental health
- Pulmonary oncology
Research chairs
- Canadian Research Chair in Genomics of Heart and Lung Diseases (Yohan Bossé)
- Research Chair in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary disease (François Maltais)
- Research Chair in Vascular Remodeling Diseases (Sébastien Bonnet)
- Research Chair in Knowledge Transfer, Education and Prevention in Respiratory and Cardiovascular Health (Louis-Philippe Boulet)
