Deborah Assayag (Priority Announcement)
The Longitudinal Use of Oscillometry in Interstitial Lung Diseases

Jonathon Campbell
Co-Investigators: Benjamin Smith, Kevin Schwartzman, Dick Menzies, Andrea Benedetti
Functional Outcomes, Lung health, and Livelihood Outcomes among people With Tuberculosis (FOLLOW-TB): a pan-Canadian prospective cohort study

Maziar Divangahi
Harnessing the power of trained immunity in disease tolerance against influenza virus

Elizabeth Fixman (Priority Announcement)
Sex-specific mechanisms by which environmental triggers promote durable changes to the lung to exacerbate type 2 innate and adaptive immunity

Irah King
Mechanisms of tissue-resident T cell activation for intestinal host defense

Larry Lands (Co-Principal Investigator)
Nominated Principal Investigator: Juan Ianowski (University of Saskatchewan)
Function of pulmonary ionocytes and club cells in human airway and their contribution to cystic fibrosis lung disease

Larry Lands (Co-Principal Investigator)
Nominated Principal Investigator: Sze Man Tse (Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine)
Predicting biologic therapy response in children with severe asthma: the Medication response and Asthma Therapy in CHildren with severe Asthma (MATCHA) Study

Sushmita Pamidi
Co-Investigators: Andrea Benedetti, John Kimoff
Sleep-Disordered Breathing During Pregnancy and Long-Term Postpartum Blood Pressure Pattern

Bryan Ross
Co-Investigators: Jean Bourbeau, Jun Ding, Sabah Hussain, Larry Lands
Enhancing the Clinical Benefits of COPD Chronic Management: The SUPplementation with URolithin-A during Pulmonary Rehabilitation in COPD (SUPRA-COPD) Trial

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It is with great pleasure that we announce Kalpana Chaudhary as the recipient of the 2025-2026 Dr. Margaret Becklake Fellowship in Respiratory Research. Kalpana’s commitment to public health research has been shaped by nearly two decades of experience addressing health inequities affecting women and children in Nepal. Her journey began in 2007 with undergraduate training in public health in Kathmandu, where she developed foundational skills in epidemiology, program evaluation, and health systems research. Early independent research on adolescent reproductive health revealed the powerful influence of social norms and gender inequities on access to care, setting the stage for a career focused on translating evidence into equitable, community-responsive interventions. Following graduation, Ms. Chaudhary held leadership roles within national health system, strengthening initiatives at JSI Research and Training Institute, including the scale-up of chlorhexidine cord care across six rural districts of Nepal. This work strengthened her expertise in implementation, coordination, and maternal–newborn health policy.

Ms. Chaudhary next enrolled in a Master of Science in Public Health (Epidemiology) at Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences. Her Master’s thesis, a randomized controlled trial evaluating a social media–based health education intervention to improve postnatal care knowledge among pregnant women, addressed a critical gap in maternal health, where postnatal care utilization remains below 40% despite high antenatal care coverage. By delivering culturally tailored educational videos via Facebook Messenger, her intervention led to significant improvements in postnatal care knowledge and was published as a first-author paper in PLOS ONE. Concurrently, her internship with One Heart Worldwide deepened her engagement with implementation science, contributing qualitative research that informed the expansion of nurse mentorship programs to strengthen maternal and neonatal care in underserved regions of Nepal.

Building on this foundation, Ms. Chaudhary joined the Institute of Implementation Science and Health as a Research Associate, where she has played a central role in multiple large-scale studies evaluating real-world interventions across the maternal and child health continuum. Her work spans longitudinal birth cohorts, mobile health and telemonitoring interventions for gestational diabetes, and advanced quantitative and qualitative analyses addressing cardiometabolic outcomes, workplace violence among healthcare workers, and implementation barriers in primary care. She has published as both first and co-author in leading journals, including Journal of Diabetes and Metabolic Disorder, PLOS Global Public Health, and BMJ Public Health. Alongside her research, she remained actively engaged in teaching, mentorship, and graduate supervision at Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences.

Ms. Chaudhary’s joined McGill University as a PhD Candidate in September 2026. Her doctoral research project focuses on sleep-disordered breathing during pregnancy and its long-term consequences for maternal cardiovascular health, mental health, and offspring cardiometabolic outcomes, leveraging the longitudinal 3D Cohort Study in Quebec. Following her doctoral training, Ms. Chaudhary plans to return to Nepal to pursue a research-led academic career, with the long-term goal of establishing a Center of Excellence in Respiratory Epidemiology. This centre will bridge research and implementation, strengthen local research capacity, and advance equitable, evidence-based solutions for respiratory health among women and children in Nepal and other high-burden settings.

About the Dr. Margaret Becklake Fellowship

The Montreal Chest Institute Foundation and the MUHC Respiratory Division are proud to support the Dr. Margaret Becklake Fellowship. Over the course of her career, Dr. Becklake had a major interest in respiratory health in lower-income countries, including in childhood asthma and occupational lung disease. She conducted research in this area for many years. She also trained and hosted students in respiratory research from lower-income countries, who then became leaders in research and care in those countries. Beginning with the inaugural award for 2020-21, the Dr. Margaret Becklake Fellowship will be awarded to at least one trainee in respiratory research every year as they conduct research under the supervision of scientists at the Montreal Chest Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. Recipients are chosen from low- and middle-income countries as well as from Canadian Indigenous communities. This fellowship will help us train the next generation of respiratory researchers and specialists in areas of the world where the need is greatest.

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Congrats Marta!

Read More

Dr. Marta Kaminska Appointed MUHC Division Director of Respiratory Medicine. McGill Department of Medicine News. June 5, 2025.

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The COPE-PAP trial, the longest clinical study of its kind in a neurodegenerative disorder, followed participants for six months to assess whether PAP therapy could mitigate cognitive decline. Results showed that individuals who adhered to the therapy experienced improved cognitive function and other symptom relief associated with Parkinson’s disease. While not all patients may be able to use PAP therapy, these findings suggest it could be an important tool for neurologists in managing Parkinson’s. Researchers believe the study’s insights could also apply to other neurodegenerative and cognitive disorders, though further research is needed to confirm these benefits in broader patient populations.

Read the Publication

Cognition and obstructive sleep apnea in Parkinson’s disease: randomized controlled trial of positive airway pressure (COPE-PAP trial). Lajoie AC, Lafontaine AL, Kimoff RJ, Benedetti A, Robinson AR, Létourneau M, Crane J, Scanga A, Noel F, Kaminska M. Sleep. 2025 Feb 13:zsaf038.

Read More

PAP therapy may improve cognitive function in Parkinson’s disease. Research highlights potential cognitive and symptom improvements in Parkinson’s patients through treatment of obstructive sleep apnea with Positive Airway Pressure (PAP) therapy. The Institute News. March 13, 2025

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Deborah Assayag: Programme de bourses de chercheuse-boursières Cliniciennes (Junior 2).
Title: Evaluer et optimiser le traitement et le pronostic en maladies pulmonaires interstitielles.

Sushmita Pamidi: Programme de bourses de chercheuse-boursières Cliniciennes (Senior).
Title: L’apnée du sommeil chez la mère pendant la grossesse et son impact sur la santé cardiométabolique de l’enfant et de la mère.

Andrea Benedetti: Programme de bourses de chercheuse-boursières Cliniciennes (Mérite).
Title: Défis statistiques concernant les méta-analyses des données agrégées et des données individuelles des participants

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Jonathon Campbell, PhD, for his Proposal Measuring the Economic Burden of Illness: Patient Costs Associated with Four Respiratory Conditions.

Maziar Divangahi, PhD, for his Proposal Promoting disease tolerance against pulmonary SARS-CoV2 infection.

Nicole Ezer, MD, and Simon Rousseau, PhD, for their Proposal Improving a lung cancer screening program via detailed proteomic signature of participants to the Quebec lung cancer screening program.

Sushmita Pamidi, MD, for her Proposal Defining gut microbiome dynamics across the lifespan during treatment of obstructive sleep apnea.

Salman Qureshi, MD, for his Proposal Neutrophil regulation of adaptive immunity against fungal pneumonia.

Bryan Ross, MD, for his Proposal Urolithin A supplementation during pulmonary rehabilitation participation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a randomized pilot and feasibility study.

The post 2023 MUHC Foundation MCI Innovation Grant Awards appeared first on Meakins-Christie Laboratories.

James Martin. Co-PI: Maziar Divangahi. Determinants of susceptibility to influenza infection in pregnant mice. Ranked 1st in the Respiratory System Committee!

Benjamin Smith. Co-PIs: Andrea Benedetti, Nicole Ezer. Improving Canadian Lung Cancer Screening Efficiency with a Computed Tomography Risk Classifier. Ranked 1st in the Public, Community & Population Health Committee.

Sushmita Pamidi. Co-PI: John Kimoff. Understanding Barriers and Facilitators to the Treatment of Sleep-Disordered Breathing in Pregnancy and Postpartum.

Deborah Assayag. Co-PI: Andrea Benedetti. Sex and gender based disparities in the treatment of patients with interstitial lung diseases. (Bridge Funding)

The post CIHR Project Grant Results – Fall 2022 appeared first on Meakins-Christie Laboratories.

(Time on Podcast: 11:40). A new sleep clinic at the MUHC is helping patients with sleep apnea sleep and breathe easier using wearable technology. Not sleeping well can have a huge impact on our day to day labs. Dr. John Kimoff is the director of the sleep lab at the MUHC. The sleep lab includes individual rooms that patients can sleep in overnight and have their sleep patterns recorded overnight. Patients that use the sleep lab include those with sleep-related breathing disorders such as apnea or hypoventilation, as well as other non-breathing sleep disorders such as narcolepsy and abnormal movements during the night. In the lab, the team can study behavior at night and correlate with recordings. There is also a home testing program. In the comfort of one’s home, wearable technologies can record breathing efforts, oxygen levels, and breathing airflow. Useful information can be obtained from these technologies and inform care plans or follow-up studies. While these wearable technologies might not be able to reliably diagnose sleep-apnea just yet, they are getting better as the technologies develop.

Listen to the Podcast

Discover what we’ve accomplished together. The MUHC Foundation’s Health Matters. July 24, 2022.

Web: http://bit.ly/3aQfvVQ
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/32HFxrc
Apple: https://apple.co/35NvItS

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Congrats to the the Montreal Chest Hospital Team!

The post Run for a Reason 2022 appeared first on Meakins-Christie Laboratories.

Early Lung Cancer Screening

(Time on podcast: 11:20). 13,000 die in Quebec from tobacco use every year. Dr. Nicole Ezer discusses lung cancer screening and smoking cessation. Smoking has an impact not only on the lungs, but also on the heart and the brain. With time, smoking causes airway inflammation and lung destruction (emphysema) and reduced lung function. Smoking increases the thickness of our blood, so this can reduce a person’s oxygen levels when they smoke, even if they are only casual or occasional smokers. Because lung cancer does not cause many symptoms, it is often only detected once it is larger or has started to spread. Later stages of cancer are more difficult to treat. Ideally, if the cancer is caught earlier, treatments and surgical interventions have a better chance of success. People can be screened with a CT scan to detect abnormal spots on the lung to see if they grow over time. Candidates eligible for early lung cancer screening in Quebec are people between the ages of 55-74 who are current or former smokers. Anyone can call and be evaluated to determine if they are eligible for the screening program. This program started at the MUHC in 2018 and is has been available across the province since 2021. The hope is that this program will be available in the long term and show that early screening can catch lung cancers early and prevent death.

Quitting smoking is incredibly difficult for many. The best advice is to not give up. Most people try 2-3 times before being successful in quitting smoking. People have to be aware that there are medications and psychological support programs available to help with smoking cessation.

For information on the screening program:
Lung Cancer Screening Program / Programme de Dépistage du Cancer du Poumon  https://www.depistagecancerdupoumon.com/en/

How are you Sleeping?

(Time on podcast: 31:50) How are you sleeping? Being able to have a full night’s sleep is something many of us wish for. A sleep lab at the MUHC studies breathing related issues that may prevent us from getting a good night’s sleep. What does a good night’s sleep actually mean? Essentially, if you are able to fall asleep in a short amount of time, sleep the night, feel refreshed when you wake up, and if you don’t have sleepiness or fatigue during the day… you got a good night’s sleep. Patients with sleep apnea don’t have this feeling. This happens when our breathing is interrupted during the night. Oxygen levels go down, and the patient’s sleep becomes disrupted. Listen to the podcast to learn about some of the ways we can get a better night’s sleep.

Listen to the podcast

How are you sleeping? The MUHC Foundation’s Health Matters. January 23, 2022.

Where to listen:

Web: http://bit.ly/3aQfvVQ
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/32HFxrc
Apple: https://apple.co/35NvItS

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