Attached please find the abstract for this month’s seminar in the SOCAAR seminar series.  

The video and summary of last month’s seminar “Towards a mechanistic understanding of particulate 
matter redox cycling at the molecular level by Rob McWhinney, is now posted at:
http://www.socaar.utoronto.ca/collaborations/SOCAAR_Seminar_Series.htm

We will also record and post this month’s seminar: 

Pollution induced airway inflammation and dysfunction -
what studies in lung transplantation can teach us

Dr. Yasushi Matsuda 
Research Fellow and Lung Transplant Clinical Fellow, 
Latner Thoracic Surgery,  
University Health Network

Dr. Chung-Wai Chow
Assistant Professor,
Division of Respiratory and Multi-Organ Transplant Programme
Toronto General Hospital

Lung transplantation is the only viable option for end stage lung diseases. However, chronic rejection is 
more common in lung transplant patients than most other types of solid organ transplantation. It is the 
main obstacle to long term survival. Manifesting as bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome with obliteration of 
the airway lumen, it occurs in 50% of patients by year 5 and in 75% by year 10. Susceptibility of lung 
transplant patients to rejection has been associated with exposure to traffic related air pollution.

Chronic inflammation and abnormal tissue repair are thought to be the common underlying processes 
that lead to airway injury observed in chronic rejection. Similar mechanisms have been identified in the 
pathogenesis of another chronic airway disease that is adversely affected by pollution, namely asthma.

Recent work by Dr. Chung-Wai Chow's group has identified an enzyme, spleen tyrosine kinase (Syk), 
which is critical for regulation of the immune system, to play a key role in modulating airway 
inflammation and division/growth of cells. Her group has shown that inhibition of Syk can abrogate 
airway hyper-responsiveness to air pollutants in a mouse model of asthma. This seminar will show results 
from animal studies that demonstrate how this enzyme is involved in the rejection of transplanted lung 
tissue. We will further discuss a novel potential strategy to control chronic rejection using drug 
treatment that inhibits Syk.

December 5, 2012, 3 - 4 pm
Wallberg Building, 200 College Street, Room 407