Roma Sehmi
Professor, Medicine

Dr Roma Sehmi is a Professor in the Department of Medicine at McMaster University. She received her PhD from the Royal Brompton National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College (London, UK) and completed post-doctoral fellowship training at Cambridge University, UK and McMaster University. Her research focuses on mechanisms of airway inflammation in asthma. She has investigated the role of hemopoietic processes in the development of airway eosinophilia in asthma. By developing methodologies to comprehensively enumerate and phenotype rare cells in cord blood, bone marrow, blood and airway secretions her studies have endeavoured to understand cell migration of mature and precursor cells during asthmatic responses and to compare unique compartmental differences in specific cell populations. Using these techniques her current research focuses on the role of innate lymphoid cells in driving exacerbations in subjects with asthma with a differential bronchitis. She is investigating alarmin and neuro-immune pathways regulating these pathobiological interactions. These studies are also extended to patients with chronic obstractive pulmonary disease.
Dr. Sehmi is a member of the Clinical Investigator Collaborative, a group of Canadian academic centers that accelerate testing of investigational medications through Phase IIa-IIb proof-of-concept studies in asthma. By examining sputum, blood and bone marrow aspirates, her work has described cross-compartmental effects following inhaled allergen exposure in asthmatics and investigated the mechanistic effects of novel biologic therapies. Dr Sehmi is a fellow of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI) and has chaired the Mechanisms of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Interest Section. She is also an inducted member of the Collegium Internationale Allergologicum (CIA). Her work has received funding from national and provincial granting agencies, and she holds several investigator-initiated grants. She was awarded an Ontario Lung Association award for research excellence and has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters (cited 6100 and h index of 42 by Google Scholar). She is an area coordinator in the Health Science Graduate program at McMaster University, teaches undergraduate and graduate courses and continues to train graduate and post-doctoral fellows.