As a thoracic surgeon in Japan, I would often see and treat patients with a past history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Deep inside, I would always think “Not again…”. Even if the patient wasn’t formally diagnosed with COPD and just had a long (sometimes extremely long) history of smoking, it would raise a flag in my mind. I knew that this person had a high risk of adhesion in their thorax and would probably suffer severe post-operative pneumonia. This pneumonia would cause a huge deterioration in their quality of life, and, even worse, could be life-threatening.

It was therefore quite exciting for me to have the chance to join HLI as a postdoctoral fellow, working on a new project aiming to develop a non-invasive treatment for emphysema. Emphysema is a specific type of COPD that involves damage to the alveoli (air sacs) in the lungs. While in Japan, I had dreamed of studying abroad someday, and had been asking my professor if there was any chance to do so. Fortunately, my university has a long-standing relationship with HLI (more than 30 years!), and in 2025, I was chosen to visit the HLI as an international researcher.

In my experience, most patients with emphysema take medicine to control their symptoms without seeing actual improvement of their disease. Those who have severe symptoms may be candidates for lung volume reduction surgery, but as a surgeon, I have never seen a patient undergo this procedure. Here at HLI, we are working with an industry partner, Ikomed Technologies, to develop a treatment for emphysema and test it in animal models. We started with rodents and, over the past several years, have been conducting studies in pigs as we move closer to first-in-human trials.

As a first step, I am evaluating lung function in these animals. Since they are pigs, we cannot ask them (!) if they are feeling any symptoms or having difficulty breathing, nor can we do spirometry (a test to determine how well the lungs work).

Next, I am learning how to objectively analyze my results without bias. This is a great challenge as pig lungs are huge. If we wanted to evaluate the morphological features of the lung through a microscope, realistically we would have to collect specific areas to analyze. With the lungs being so large, how can we collect specimens uniformly? How many samples should we collect to be able to capture the characteristics for the entire lung? All of these questions are completely new to me and would never have been brought up when I was in Japan.

HLI members have given me the support and advice I need to measure histology features, such as the mean distance between each alveoli, as well as lung compliance (through plethysmography). This is a technique to measure the change in lung volume following a change in pressure. A patient/animal breathes into a mouthpiece while inside an airtight box. The change in air pressure is measured as the chest expands. There are many experts at HLI who have been working on evaluating lung function in large animals, and they have given me guidance. 

In reality most days as a researcher are not about having great ideas that can change the world or discovering one of the true mysteries of science. Instead, working with diverse team members with different backgrounds can sometimes bring unexpected viewpoints not yet considered, and lead to new ways of understanding. This process is very satisfying and can bring great joy. Coworkers can also help with presenting results in a more easily understood manner.

A year ago, while working as a physician in Japan, I could have never imagined that I would have the opportunity to work at HLI. I am grateful to have the chance to work with a great team and to be surrounded with new discoveries. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I hope I can make great progress that can help me reach new milestones in my career. While research often leads to incremental step-by-step discoveries, I hope my contributions within the next year to discovery in the realm of COPD can make a difference in disease treatment.

On March 23, 2026, HLI hosted another insightful session as part of its Seminar Series, featuring Milad Vahedi, a PhD trainee working under Dr. Graeme Koelwyn. Milad’s talk, titled Chronic Exercise as a Modulator of Immune Responses in Aging: An Evolutionary Perspective, delved into the fascinating relationship between physical activity, our immune system, and the aging process.

Milad began by taking us on a journey back to our ancestors, who relied heavily on endurance activities like walking and running to hunt and survive. Their bodies adapted to these long-distance activities, improving their oxygen delivery to muscles. But the benefits didn’t stop there. These adaptations also fine-tuned their immune systems, helping them stay healthy by reducing inflammation and strengthening their defenses against disease.

Fast forward to today, and the situation has changed dramatically. With modern, sedentary lifestyles, many of us no longer engage in the kind of physical activity that our ancestors did. This lack of movement leads to chronic low-level inflammation, which can speed up aging and increase the risk of diseases associated with aging. Milad highlighted how this mismatch between our evolutionary biology and modern habits is a major driver of aging-related health issues.

However, the good news is that regular, chronic exercise can help counteract this process. Milad’s research suggests that staying active can regulate immune responses in a way that prevents or even treats aging-related diseases. In fact, exercise doesn’t just help with muscle health—it can play a crucial role in maintaining a healthy immune system throughout life.

Milad’s presentation was a powerful reminder of the importance of physical activity, not just for fitness, but for its broader impact on overall health and aging. His work is a step forward in understanding how we can harness exercise to help keep our immune systems strong and reduce the risk of chronic diseases as we age.

To learn more about Milad’s incredible work, feel free to check out his LinkedIn profile here: Milad Vahedi LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/milad-vahedi-72065839a/

This seminar provided an inspiring look at the long-term benefits of staying active, and Milad’s research is helping shed light on how simple lifestyle changes can have a profound impact on our health as we age.

On February 23rd, HLI hosted another engaging session as part of its Seminar Series, featuring Samuel Leung, a PhD student in Bioinformatics from the Computational Biology and part of Wang’s Lab at HLI. Samuel’s talk, titled Benchmarking and Developing Tools for Cardiovascular Drug Repurposing, explored an innovative approach to tackling the global heart disease crisis.

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide, yet developing new treatments is often slow and costly. Samuel’s talk shed light on a promising solution: repurposing existing drugs. This approach focuses on finding new uses for drugs that have already been approved and proven to be safe, significantly reducing the time and costs involved in clinical trials.

Traditional methods of drug repurposing can be hit-or-miss, often relying on chance observations of how a drug affects conditions it wasn’t originally designed to treat. These methods don’t offer much insight into how or why a drug works in a different context, making it difficult to predict if it will help with a new disease. Samuel’s research aims to improve these methods by using computational tools that better identify promising treatments for heart disease.

By evaluating and refining these tools, Samuel is helping pave the way for faster and more cost-effective development of new cardiovascular therapies. This research is an exciting step toward making heart disease treatments more accessible and efficient, ultimately saving lives on a global scale.

This session provided a fascinating look at how modern technology is being used to improve healthcare, and Samuel’s work is a crucial contribution to the field of cardiovascular treatment.

If you want to connect with Samuel and learn more about his work, feel free to visit his LinkedIn profile here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sleung124/

On January 19, 2026, Zeren Sun, a PhD candidate working with Dr. Pascal Bernatchez, gave a talk as part of the ongoing Seminar Series at the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation (HLI). The presentation, titled “The Interplay Between Circulating Lipoproteins and Intramuscular Lipids in the Pathogenesis of Dysferlin-related Muscular Dystrophy,” explored the role cholesterol plays in muscular dystrophy (MD), a condition that causes progressive muscle weakness.

Zeren’s research focused on how imbalances in cholesterol levels, both in the blood and within muscle cells, could contribute to the worsening of MD. Healthy muscles depend on a proper cholesterol balance, something patients on cholesterol-lowering medications called statins know all too well, as they often cause statin-associated myopathies, such as muscle pain. But in people with MD, this balance is also disrupted, but differently. Zeren shared how disruptions in cholesterol can interfere with how muscles process fats, leading to muscle damage and reducing the ability of muscles to repair themselves, especially in the absence of a protein called dysferlin.

Using patient data, mouse models, and lab-grown muscle cells, the Bernatchez lab found that it is the presence of harmful “bad” cholesterol particles, the severity of MD is worsened. Their research also suggests that dysferlin might help control how cholesterol moves within muscle cells, which could lead to potential new treatment options. Additionally, certain dietary fats may help improve cholesterol balance in the muscles, offering a possible approach to managing MD. Zeren’s work emphasizes the importance of understanding how cholesterol affects muscle health and suggests that targeting cholesterol pathways might help improve treatment strategies for MD.

If you want to connect with Zeren and learn more about his work, feel free to visit his ResearchGate profile here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zeren-Sun

Yejin Kang Explores the Link Between Cholesterol and Muscular Dystrophy

On January 12th, HLI  hosted another insightful session in our ongoing Seminar Series. This week, Yejin Kang, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Bernatchez Lab, shared her exciting research on how cholesterol affects muscle health, particularly in the context of muscular dystrophy.

Muscular dystrophy (MD) is a group of genetic conditions that cause muscle weakness and damage. Yejin’s talk, titled The Role of Circulating Cholesterol in Muscular Dystrophy and Muscle Regeneration, explored how changes in cholesterol levels can worsen the effects of this disease and even hinder the body’s ability to repair muscles.

One key takeaway from Yejin’s work is how statin intolerance, a condition that leads to muscle pain, can demonstrate how sensitive muscles are to fluctuations in cholesterol levels. Bernatchez’s lab has been studying the relationship between cholesterol and muscle dysfunction, using pre-clinical models and human samples to uncover new insights. In one experiment, they found that an unhealthy cholesterol level dramatically worsened the condition of mice with muscular dystrophy, leading to severe muscle wasting.

Yejin’s research doesn’t stop at understanding the problem. She is also working on finding better ways to prevent or treat this muscle degeneration by studying how different cholesterol levels impact muscle healing. The team is specifically looking at a group of mice with a genetic mutation similar to one seen in humans with muscular dystrophy, using them to test how cholesterol diets affect muscle regeneration after injury.

Her work is part of a larger effort to understand how metabolic factors like cholesterol can play a role in muscle diseases and could eventually lead to new treatment options.

The seminar was a wonderful opportunity to learn about the real-world impact of cholesterol on muscle health, and Yejin’s contributions to this important area of research are invaluable in the quest for better treatments for muscular dystrophy.

If you want to connect with Yejin and learn more about her work, feel free to visit her ResearchGate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yejin-Kang