Category: News

James F. Donohue, MD, from the Division of Pulmonary Diseases and Critical Care Medicine, has been recognized in this week’s Carolina Care Highlights. See the full story here.

At the recent North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference in Denver, George Retsch-Bogart, MD, professor of pediatrics and co-director of the UNC Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics Development Center, received the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s 2018 Richard C. Talamo Distinguished Clinical Achievement Award. Read the full story here.

New UNC School of Medicine research led by Martina Gentzsch, PhD, and Carla Ribeiro, PhD, suggests that cystic fibrosis drugs used to correct the faulty CFTR protein would work better when the patients’ airways are inflamed. Read the fully story here.

Ilona Jaspers, PhD, was featured as a guest expert on a NIEHS podcast about e-cigarettes and teenagers. Read the full story here.

Michelle Hernandez, MD, associate medical director of the N.C. Children’s Allergy & Asthma Center, led a study that followed 23 asthma patients in North Carolina to show that even with optimized treatment for persistent asthma, patients experienced respiratory and systemic effects from exposure to low levels of ozone. Read the...

Lung cell impairment can occur with exposure to e-cigarettes, but other short and long-term effects of vaping remain unknown. Read the full story here.

Ilona Jaspers, PhD, Deputy Director of the Center for Environmental Medicine, Asthma and Lung Biology, is featured in the August 15th Reuters article “Adult smokers more apt to use e-cigarettes than nonsmokers,” which can be found here.

For patients with end-stage chronic lung disease, every breath is tiresome and difficult. When the disease is no longer responsive to medical therapies, a lung transplant is a possibility for patients under the age of 70. Frank Sands is breathing new life after a double lung transplant. To show his...

Researchers in lab of Ilona Jaspers, PhD, found that the common food additive cinnamaldehyde impaired cilia — the hair-like structures on lung cells crucial for proper respiratory function. Read the story here, and the New York Times article here.

This year’s ATS Assembly on Pediatrics Lifetime Contributions to Pediatric Respiratory Medicine Award went to Margaret W. Leigh, MD. This award is given for achievement in teaching, clinical care, advocacy, scholarship or research over the course of an entire career. Read the full article here.