HLI is proud to celebrate the success of Dr. Janice Leung and Dr. Scott Tebbutt, who along with their co-applicants and research teams, have received over $1.8 million in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Fall 2025 Project Grant competition. This funding will support important new research aimed at improving care for people living with lung disease, heart transplants, and health inequities across Canada.
Understanding COPD Beyond Smoking
Dr. Janice Leung will lead the MAPLE-SEED Study, a project focused on understanding why some people develop chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) even though they have never smoked. COPD is a long-term lung disease that affects breathing and impacts more than 2.6 million Canadians.
While smoking is a major cause of COPD, it does not explain all cases. About one in five people with COPD have never smoked, suggesting other factors play an important role. Dr. Leung’s research looks at how life experiences and living conditions such as childhood hardship, income level, education, air pollution, diet, and neighbourhood environment can affect lung health over time.
The study focuses on changes in the body that occur at the molecular level, specifically through a process called DNA methylation. In simple terms, DNA methylation acts like a biological record of the experiences a person has had throughout their life. These changes can also reflect how quickly the body is aging, sometimes referred to as a “biological clock.”
Dr. Leung’s team hypothesizes that long-term exposure to social and environmental challenges speeds up biological aging and increases the risk of COPD and poor breathing outcomes.
Using information from two large Canadian studies that follow people over many years, the research will:
- Explore how life circumstances and resulting changes in DNA methylation affect lung health
- Identify risk factors for biological aging and COPD – and potentially ways to improve prevention and treatment
In the long term, the applicants hope that this work leads to the development of a simple blood test to help identify people at higher risk of worsening lung disease.
This research brings together experts from many fields, including lung medicine, public health, biology, and data science. The goal is to help prevent COPD, improve early detection, and reduce health disparities.
Improving Early Detection of Complications After Heart Transplantation
Dr. Scott Tebbutt’s research project focuses on improving care for people who have received a heart transplant. Over time, many transplant recipients develop a condition called cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV), which causes the blood vessels of the transplanted heart to narrow. CAV is the leading cause of late transplant failure.
Currently, CAV is usually detected through invasive heart tests, often only after symptoms appear. Dr. Tebbutt’s team aims to develop a simple blood test that can detect signs of CAV much earlier, before serious damage occurs.
The research will look for small changes in the blood such as proteins and molecules that signal early injury or inflammation in the heart. By studying blood samples collected at different times after transplantation, the team hopes to identify patterns that clearly separate healthy recovery from early disease.
This research project will:
- Identify early warning signs of CAV using blood samples
- Track how these signals change over time in transplant patients
- Test how accurately these blood markers can predict disease
- Combine multiple blood signals into a reliable early-detection tool
Led by Dr. Tebbutt and Co-Applicant and HLI Research Associate Dr. Chengliang Yang, the long-term goal of this research is to improve monitoring, reduce invasive testing, and help patients receive treatment sooner.
Making Research Matter for Patients
Together, these CIHR-funded projects reflect HLI’s commitment to research that puts patients first. By studying how social conditions affect lung disease and by developing earlier, less invasive tests for heart transplant complications, these projects aim to improve quality of life, reduce health disparities, and support better outcomes for patients across Canada.
Congratulations to Dr. Leung, Dr. Tebbutt, and their research teams and co-applicants on being awarded these project grants.