Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Asthma is one of the most prevalent diseases in Canada, affecting more than 3.8 million Canadians. To date, clinical trials have established that treatment with bronchodilators and inhaled steroids can relieve patients' symptoms but these treatments are unable to reverse the disease process, leading to asthma exacerbations being the largest cause of emergency room visits in Canada each year. Asthma patients have difficulty breathing as their airways - the tubes that carry air in and out of the lung become partially scarred and plugged. This is known as airway fibrosis and mucus plugging, which lead to airflow obstruction. The smallest airways within the lung, defined as less than 2mm in diameter, have been suggested to be the major sites of airflow obstruction. However, researchers have yet to study small airway fibrosis and mucus plugging in the asthmatic lung as they have not been able to be visualized previously. The goal of our study is to use a high­ resolution computed tomography (CT) imaging method to understand how airway fibrosis and mucus plugging occurs throughout the asthmatic lung and leads to alterations in the ability of a person to breathe normally. We will then use cutting­ edge single ­cell imaging technology released in 2019 to image for the first time all the cells present within the small airways. Then lung cells isolated from the patients with asthma will be used to test if the disease-drivers we identify can be modulated with new or existing therapies. This new knowledge will allow us to better understand the cells responsible for airway fibrosis and mucus plugging in asthma and how to develop better drugs to enable Canadians with asthma to breathe more easily each day.