Congratulations to Maziar Divangahi, PhD, recipient of the 2024 CIHR-Canadian Thoracic Society (CTS) Mid-Career Lecturer in Respiratory Sciences for 2024. This award is given to individuals who have contributed significantly to the advancement of respiratory sciences within the past 10 years in Canada and on the international scene, as well as having a meaningful impact on mentorship and training of early career scientists. This is a great honour and very well deserved for the outstanding work Maz has published over the past several years in the area of host-pathogen interactions in the lung, including a recent paper in Nature.
Maz’s lecture will be delivered at the 2024 Canadian Thoracic Society Conference.
Congratulations Maz, this is richly deserved and we are proud to be your colleagues!
CIHR-ICRH Newsletter Feature
On December 11, 2024, Maziar Divangahi’s award was featured in the CIHR Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health (CIHR-ICRH) November-December Newsletter.
SCIENCE SPOTLIGHT
Key Scientific Questions for the Next Decade
The CIHR-ICRH has introduced a new segment in their monthly newsletter, titled Science Spotlight. This section will highlight the research efforts of scientists within the ICRH community.
In this issue, in celebration of Lung Health Awareness Month in November, the featured researcher is Dr. Maziar Divangahi, recipient of the 2024 CIHR-ICRH and Canadian Thoracic Society Mid-Career Lecturer Award in Respiratory Sciences.
About his work: Harnessing Innate Immunity in Vaccine Development for Pulmonary Infections.
Traditional vaccine strategies aim to identify antigens that stimulate long-term memory in T and B cells, thereby offering protection upon re-exposure to specific pathogens. While this approach has proven effective for many diseases, it often requires years of development and has yet to succeed against complex infections such as HIV and tuberculosis (TB).
Emerging research, however, points to an alternative strategy: leveraging both live (e.g., BCG, measles, smallpox, oral polio) and non-live (e.g., inactivated influenza) vaccines for “off-target” or cross-protection against unrelated pathogens. This unexpected protection has been linked to the activation and reprogramming of the innate immune system.
The innate immune system, an ancient and highly diverse defense mechanism found in nearly all species, predates adaptive immunity. Since over 95% of species rely solely on innate immunity, it is likely that the concept of immunological memory originated in this foundational system. Upon vaccination, the innate immune system shows remarkable adaptability, with live vaccines activating it via pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) and non-live vaccines using adjuvants. These interactions engage pattern recognition receptors (like TLRs and NODs) and initiate “trained immunity,” a form of innate memory.
Despite its potential, the concept of trained immunity has been largely overlooked in vaccine development. Harnessing this phenomenon offers a promising avenue for creating vaccines that could better address pulmonary infections or reduce the harmful immune responses associated with these diseases.