Chung-Wai Chow

Administrative Assistant: Rhiannon Davies, rhiannon.davies@utoronto.ca

Research Key Words: Respiratory oscillometry, pulmonary function tests, lung transplant, interstitial lung disease, COVID

Research Methods: Biostatistics, machine learning, lung physiology 

Research Synopsis

There are two theme in my research group:

The first theme is focused on understanding the effects of environmental air pollution on cardiorespiratory health. Current projects include:
1. studies in the lung transplant population to evaluate uptake of traffic-related air pollutants in the lung, and the correlation of these levels with ambient air pollutant and outcomes following transplantation
2. real-time exposure of ambient air pollutants and vehicular exhaust, and their effect on respiratory and cardiac function in vivo using different animal models of chronic inflammatory lung diseases, ventilator-based evaluation of lung function and cardiac telemetry
3. use of ex vivo lung slices to study the physiological responses, and in vitro cell culture models to identify the cellular pathways that regulate response to different components of air pollutants; these project using real time live imaging and cutting edge cellular molecular biology techniques

The second theme focuses on the role of Syk in modulating airway inflammation, tissue injury and airway remodeling, a common feature observed in chronic lung diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive lung disease and chronic lung graft rejection following transplantation. Research is carried out in vitro using mono- and co-cultures of airway epithelial and airway smooth muscle cells, and ex vivo and in vivo using several animal models of allergen-induced asthma and lung transplantation.