Sukhwinder Sohal

Growing up in a city called Amritsar in the Punjab state of India, Dr Sohal was a curious child – always fascinated by medicine and science. He came to Tasmania in 2006 to pursue A PhD at the University of Tasmania. Before this, he earned a Masters in Biochemical Pharmacology, a Masters in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and a Bachelor of Science from universities in India and Southampton, in the United Kingdom.

It was here that he did research on the immunopathology of asthma at Southampton General Hospital. After repeatedly seeing staff and patients smoking outside the hospital, it led him to the question: what is this doing to their lungs? This interest brought Dr Sohal to Tasmania in 2006, where he pursued a PhD in immunopathology of smoking-related chronic lung disease at the School of Medicine and Menzies Research Institute. To this day Dr Sohal continues to research respiratory health.

The Clifford Craig Foundation has supported a number of research projects from Dr Sohal over the years, including:

• Evaluating the role of endothelial to mesenchymal transition in the pathogenesis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis & pulmonary hypertension

• Are newly introduced electronic smoking devices safe for smoking cessation and implications for SARS-COV-2 infection (COVID-19)?

• The establishment of Tasmania's first lunch cancer registry: a North and North-West collaborative initiative

• The evaluation of new therapeutic targets in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF): insights from Australian IPF registry tissue analysis 

• The prevalence of asthma-chronic obstructive pulmonary disease overlap syndrome (ACOS) in North-West Tasmanian populations: understanding and translation to early therapy

• Epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) in the lungs and airways in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis

Dr Sohal is currently leading the Respiratory Translational Research Group (RTRG) at UTAS’ School of Health Sciences in Launceston. The team are focussed on discovering and identifying novel mechanisms that may act as exciting new therapeutic targets for treating chronic lung diseases. The research group investigates cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying chronic lung diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Lung Cancer, Asthma-COPD Overlap Syndrome (ACOS), Asthma, Pulmonary hypertension, Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM).

In 2019 Dr Sohal was the first to report on heat-not-burn tobacco products (electronic cigarettes or vaping), showing that those devices are determinantal to lung health and should not be considered as a safe alternative to traditional tobacco smoking. That study was recently noted in the World Health Organisation 2020 tobacco products information sheet informing global policy. It also informed the European Respiratory Society mission statement on new tobacco products and supported Lung Foundation Australia and the Australian Government with their policy around heated tobacco products.

Similarly, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic Dr Sohal’s group investigated if smokers and patients with COPD are at higher risk for infection and disease. This body of work has been noted in the World Health Organisation report on the global tobacco product epidemic, 2021: addressing new and emerging products. Through their research, Dr Sohal’s team demonstrated that smoking and vaping are risk factors for the development of COVID-19 and post COVID-19 interstitial pulmonary fibrosis.