Mini-Medical School 2026-2027
Pulmonary Fibrosis: When Healing Goes Too Far
Join us for an engaging public lecture that explores how the lungs heal after injury, what happens when that healing process goes too far, and how this can lead to pulmonary fibrosis. We will examine the biological mechanisms that drive lung scarring, the processes involved in disease progression, and the challenges researchers face in developing new treatments.
By reframing fibrosis as a disease of disrupted healing, this talk offers a new perspective on lung health, the science of tissue repair, and the exciting possibilities emerging from fibrosis research. This lecture features Dr. Fui Boon Kai and Kerri Johannson, leading researchers from UCalgary’s Snyder Institute.
About Mini-Medical School
The Snyder Institute's Mini-Medical School is designed for anyone who is interested in learning about chronic, infectious and inflammatory diseases. Our interactive lecture series features topics such as chronic inflammation, HIV, kidney diseases, autoimmune diseases, cancer, the microbiome, lymphatics, diabetes, respiratory diseases and much more.
You won’t graduate with a medical degree after attending our Mini-Medical School series, but you will gain insight into healthy living and chronic diseases.
There are no pre-requisites to attend these lectures and they are open to the public from high school students to retirees. Each lecture will combine basic science with real life clinical situations in order to give Canadians a better understanding of the effects of chronic diseases on the body. Each presenter is highly knowledgeable and respected in their field of research, and most are current members of the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases at UCalgary's Cumming School of Medicine.
As one attendee commented: "While your clinical trials may still be years away, I know you are on to something huge that is going to transform many people's lives!"
Mini-Medical School will take place one Monday evening per month from 6:30-8:00pm and each lecture will be presented in a hybrid format: both in person and online via ZOOM.
To attend in person, please register first, then join us in Theatre 4 in the Health Science (HSC) Building on Foothills Campus. Directions to Theatre 4 can be found here. Doors open at 6:15 PM.
Mini-Medical School is proudly sponsored in part by AstraZeneca and UCalgary's Cumming School of Medicine.
Should you have any questions or concerns please contact Hannah Reilly, hannah.reilly@ucalgary.ca
Full 2026-2027 Program Details
October 5, 2026
Presenters: Dr. Fui Boon Kai & Dr. Kerri Johannson
Topic: Pulmonary Fibrosis: When Healing Goes Too Far
Dr. Kerri Johannson
Dr. Kerri Johannson, MD, MPH, FRCPC, ATSF, is a Pulmonary physician and Associate Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary, and co-leads the translational portfolio for the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases. She is Scientific Director for the Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) program in Calgary and the ILD Fellowship director. She is a Deputy Editor at Annals of the American Thoracic Society, and chair of the Canadian Thoracic Society’s ILD Assembly. Her research is focused on characterizing the impact of environmental exposures on pulmonary fibrosis and improving the lives of patients with ILD.
Dr. Fui Boon Kai
Dr. Fui Boon Kai, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology and a member of the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases at the University of Calgary. She is a recipient of the CIHR Research Excellence, Diversity, and Independence (REDI) Early Career Transition Award and the Lung Health Foundation Emerging Scholar Award. Dr. Kai has more than a decade of research experience investigating how scarred tissues can actively influence disease progression. Building on her background in cancer research, she now applies bioengineering, biophysical, and biochemical approaches to understand how changes in lung tissue contribute to pulmonary fibrosis. Her research group aims to uncover how interactions between cells and scarred tissue drive disease progression and to identify new therapeutic strategies that could disrupt these harmful interactions and improve outcomes for people living with pulmonary fibrosis.