Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a lethal syndrome resulting in intractable respiratory failure. It affects 250, 000 Canadians each year and kills 35, 000; many survivors are left with severe disability and worse long term health outcomes. To date, there are no effective drugs to improve outcomes of patients with ARDS; its management remains largely supportive. We previously demonstrated that ARDS results from an abnormal inflammatory response of white blood cells called neutrophils (PMN)to multiple inciting events including infections (pneumonia or influenza), pancreatitis, major trauma or surgery. Our research shows that the human lung normally retains activated PMN and later releases them into the blood in a de-activated state, but this mechanism fails in ARDS, leading to inappropriate accumulation or persistence of destructive activated circulating PMN. We developed the first extracorporeal mechano-transduction technology that de-activates PMN in ARDS, thereby providing a novel treatment irrespective of the initiating etiology. This potentially transformative technology provides a low-risk strategy to treat this challenging heterogeneous patient population, opens the door to exciting non-pharmacological immunotherapeutic approaches and personalised medicine on ICU.