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null Two RI-MUHC trainees receive 2021 Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

Congratulations to Anish Arora and Motahareh Vameghestahbanati!

2021 Vanier Canada Scholars Anish Arora and Motahareh Vameghestahbanati are research trainees at the Research Institute of the MUHC
2021 Vanier Canada Scholars Anish Arora and Motahareh Vameghestahbanati are research trainees at the Research Institute of the MUHC

Source: McGill Reporter and RI-MUHC. Two trainees from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) received Canada’s most prestigious graduate award in 2021 for their doctoral studies. New recipients of Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships, Anish Arora and Motahareh Vameghestahbanati both conduct research at the Centre for Outcomes Research and Evaluation at the RI-MUHC. They are working respectively on delivering a new digital model of HIV care delivery and identifying a major risk factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.


 

Anish Arora
Family Medicine, McGill University
Supervisor: Dr. Bertrand Lebouché, Infectious Diseases and Immunity in Global Health Program, RI-MUHC

Co-developing and piloting a new model of care delivery for migrant people living with HIV in Montreal
Anish Arora’s doctoral work focuses on configuring and piloting a smartphone-based patient portal application, OPAL, for use by migrant people living with HIV and their multidisciplinary care providers at the Chronic Viral Illness Service of the McGill University Health Centre. As part of a new digital model of HIV care delivery, OPAL is predicted to improve HIV self-management by migrant patients, reduce impediments to their retention in care, and improve their satisfaction with care. Alongside mixed methods, his team adopts a participatory research approach to meaningfully engage patients and other stakeholders in his work.

Notably, Anish Arora also co-authored a publication this month in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization exploring Pandemic prevention and unsustainable animal-based consumption, along with a publication on HIV care for migrants in AIDS Patient Care and STDs.


 

Motahareh Vameghestahbanati
Experimental Medicine, McGill University
Supervisor: Dr. Benjamin Smith, Translational Research in Respiratory Diseases Program, RI-MUHC

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and dysanapsis
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a leading cause of death and disability in the world and in Canada. Although smoking is the main risk factor, only a minority of smokers develop COPD and people who had never smoked can also develop COPD, suggesting that other risk factors must exist. Fifty years ago, scientists using simple tests that measure lung function speculated that some people have undersized airways relative to the volume of their lungs. This size mismatch was termed dysanapsis and is believed to develop early in life when airway branches grow more slowly than lung volume. Recently, by measuring airway tree size using computed tomography, Motahareh Vameghestahbanati’s team showed that people with dysanapsis are eight times more likely to develop COPD. Thus, dysanapsis is a major COPD risk factor. By integrating methods of population-based epidemiology, state-of-the-art-imaging, and physiology, they aim to understand clinical outcomes of dysanapsis and unravel targetable mechanisms of functional impairment.

Her two latest publications are in CHEST Journal and the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Read the federal government’s press release.
Read about more recipients from McGill University in the McGill Reporter

August 12, 2021