Profile of Bernard Thébaud, PhD
Professor
424 Heritage Medical Research
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada T6G 2S2
Tel: 780.492.6000
Education
- PhD, Université Paris Descartes
Research
Investigating the mechanisms underlying normal and impaired lung development and normal and impaired adaptation of the pulmonary circulation at birth.
The research is leading to the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies to improve the outcome of newborns with severe respiratory failure.
Despite major advances in newborn care, there is still a lack of efficient therapies for life-threatening and debilitating lung diseases of the newborn, which are the major cause of admission to neonatal intensive care units all over the world. Common lung diseases - such as bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), congenital diaphragmatic hernia, and pulmonary hypertension - not only endanger the lives of newborns, but can hamper the development of their healthy respiratory systems and become a problem for life.
Dr. Bernard Thébaud is a pediatrician and medical researcher with specialization in respiratory and vascular development. As the Canada Research Chair in Translational Lung and Vascular Development Biology, Dr. Thébaud studies the mechanisms underlying normal and impaired lung development with an eye to furthering the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for severe respiratory failure in newborns.
BPD, a form of chronic lung damage, is the main complication of extreme prematurity. Unfortunately, the same strategies that keep premature babies alive - mechanical ventilation and oxygen - also damage their lungs, resulting in BDP.
Dr. Thébaud is exploring the role played by angiogenesis, the formation of blood vessels, in alveolar development. Alveoli are the sac-like structures in the lung where the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide takes place between the airways and circulatory system.
Dr. Thébaud is also investigating how the synthesis of elastin, a key protein that helps form the basis of alveolar development, is disrupted by oxygen toxicity and how the prevention of elastin degradation could protect the immature lung from oxygen toxicity and permit normal alveolar development.
Further elements of Dr. Thébaud's research program include exploring the therapeutic potential of stem and lung progenitor cells to prevent or regenerate irreversible lung injury and the development of a state-of-the-art respiratory clinic.
Selected Publications
- Developmental absence of the O2 sensitivity of L-type calcium channels in preterm ductus arteriosus smooth muscle cells impairs O2 constriction contributing to patent ductus arteriosus.
- Angiogenesis in lung development, injury and repair: implications for chronic lung disease of prematurity.
- Oxygen activates the Rho/Rho-kinase pathway and induces RhoB and ROCK-1 expression in human and rabbit ductus arteriosus by increasing mitochondria-derived reactive oxygen species: a newly recognized mechanism for sustaining ductal constriction.
- Bronchopulmonary dysplasia: where have all the vessels gone? Roles of angiogenic growth factors in chronic lung disease.
- A mitochondria-K+ channel axis is suppressed in cancer and its normalization promotes apoptosis and inhibits cancer growth.
- A method for increasing jet nebulizer delivery efficiency for aerosol drug delivery in ventilated newborns: an in vitro study.
- An abnormal mitochondrial-hypoxia inducible factor-1alpha-Kv channel pathway disrupts oxygen sensing and triggers pulmonary arterial hypertension in fawn hooded rats: similarities to human pulmonary arterial hypertension.
- A central role for oxygen-sensitive K+ channels and mitochondria in the specialized oxygen-sensing system.
- Adult bone marrow-derived stem cells for the lung: implications for pediatric lung diseases.
- Vascular endothelial growth factor gene therapy increases survival, promotes lung angiogenesis, and prevents alveolar damage in hyperoxia-induced lung injury: evidence that angiogenesis participates in alveolarization.
