Asthma Society of Canada Announces 3rd Recipient of the Bastable-Potts Asthma Research Award


Dr. Parameswaran Nair, McMaster Professor of Medicine, has been named as the third recipient of the Asthma Society of Canada’s Bastable-Potts Asthma Research Award. This year’s award, valued at $5,000, recognizes innovative research done by a Canadian researcher that adds to the body of knowledge regarding Severe Asthma.

Dr. Nair is the Frederick E. Hargreave Teva Innovation Chair in Airway Diseases and Professor of Medicine in the Division of Respirology at McMaster University; a researcher at the Firestone Institute for Respiratory Health; and the Research Leader of the Clinical Investigator Collaborative (CIC)-Severe Asthma within the Allergy, Genes and Environment Network (AllerGen NCE), where he leads a Canadian-based Phase II clinical trials group evaluating promising new drug molecules for severe asthma.

The Asthma Society of Canada (ASC) established the Bastable-Potts Asthma Research Fund in 2014, following the receipt of a bequest from the estate of Gail Suzanne Potts, who died in 2012. Mrs. Potts’s mother suffered from adult onset asthma and her desire was to advance research into the multiple factors that contribute to its development. AllerGen researchers Dr. Michael Brauer (The University of British Columbia) and Dr. Malcolm Sears (McMaster University) were the two previous awardees.

Severe Asthma impacts the health and well-being of as many as 250,000 Canadians. It reduces the social, financial and health outcomes for people who suffer from this debilitating form of asthma. Dr. Nair’s innovative research investigating non-invasive measurements of airway inflammation in the treatment of Severe Asthma continues to make a difference in the lives of Canadian asthma patients. The ASC wishes to recognize in particular the value of his work using sputum analysis to develop novel biomarkers for use in targeted asthma therapies.

The Bastable-Potts Asthma Research Award was presented to Dr. Nair in Toronto on May 6, 2016, by Vanessa Foran, President & CEO of the ASC, and Dr. Susan Waserman, Chair of the ASC’s Medical and Scientific Committee, as part of the ASC’s Fighting for Breath Conference focusing on Severe Asthma.