50 Remarkable Alumni: Christopher Pascoe’s research looks to clear the air

Anyone who has spent time in the emergency room with an asthmatic child knows how scary an asthma attack can be.

But what if you could prevent childhood asthma in the womb?

That’s a goal that Dr. Christopher Pascoe and his colleagues are trying to achieve through their research on the respiratory system.

Chris, who graduated from UFV with a Bachelor of Science degree in 2010, is building a research and teaching career exploring ways of preventing asthma and other breathing issues.

The Pascoe Lab at the University of Manitoba, where Chris is a tenured assistant professor of physiology and pathophysiology, received a +$780K five-year grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in 2024. The funding will enable him and his colleagues to study the impact of blood glucose levels during pregnancy can prevent asthma from developing in children exposed to diabetes during gestation.

“Our lab is looking specifically at how gestational diabetes affects offspring,” he notes. “There is a fair amount of evidence that children of diabetic mothers are more likely to have asthma. We want to understand how that happens and try to prevent it.”

“Just like pregnant women take folic acid to prevent spina bifida, we hope to develop treatment where they can take medication to prevent asthma in their children.”

Chris’s lab studies how environmental exposures during pregnancy and childhood alter lung development and increase risk for chronic lung disease.

Chris describes his research focus in this summary:

“Risk for chronic lung diseases, including asthma and COPD, is determined by a combination of both genetic and environmental factors. The early life environment plays an important role in determining optimal lung health and therefore risk for future lung disease. The Pascoe lab focuses on understanding how environmental exposures during pregnancy and childhood alter lung development and increase risk for chronic lung disease. These exposures include cigarette smoke, e-cigarettes, cannabis, air pollution, and maternal diabetes.”

His research has been supported by funding from Research Manitoba, NSERC, CIHR, and the New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF). Chris is also part of a team that is building the AirSAFE lab, a multi-disciplinary facility to study the effects of a number of factors that can affect breathing, including air pollution and smoke from wildfires, cigarettes, and cannabis.

In all his work, Chris is mentoring the next generation of scientists, something he loves to do and a “pay it forward” legacy of the mentoring he received at UFV.

“What I enjoy the most about my job is mentorship and lab-based teaching. I’m very happy when I’m in the lab teaching research techniques to students who will be entering the workforce.”

And he looks back to his mentors at UFV, including math professor Susan Milner, biology professor Terry Star, and kinesiology professor Dave Harper, with gratitude.

“I’m very thankful for everything that UFV did for me. My experience there opened my eyes to the potential of research. I used UFV as the foundation for what I looked for in my graduate studies at UBC and the University of Manitoba, and for the type of lab I wanted to run. The choices I made then and the people who helped me along the way are the reason I’m where I am today.”

Chris is very honoured to be named one of UFV’s 50 Remarkable alumni.

“At first I thought it referred to people from my graduating year, but then I saw that it covers the whole 50 years that UFV has been around, which makes it an even greater honour to be selected.”

He and his wife Amanda, also a UFV alumna, are looking forward to bringing their young children back to BC to celebrate.