Keiko Kan-o

It was an honour and privilege to be selected as a recipient of the APSR Asthma Assembly Gold Award. I would like to thank everyone who organized the APSR Assembly Virtual Meeting (AVM). We were forced to stop all experiments in our lab after the government declared a nationwide state of emergency on April due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and many physician scientists have been still in a difficult situation here in Japan. It was a great pleasure to present our basic research in the APSR AVM which encouraged me to pursue further research.

The title of my presentation was "Incense smoke induces airway hyperresponsiveness, alterations of tight junction proteins and loss of airway epithelial barrier integrity via oxidative stress". As you know, incense burning is a common cultural practice in many Asian countries. Recent clinical studies have suggested that inhalation of incense smoke may result in impaired lung function and asthma. In the presentation, we tried to show experimental evidence to link incense smoke exposure with airway dysfunction and suggest its detrimental effects. I greatly appreciate Dr Lee's good comments and suggestions on our study.

I sincerely hope to attend 25th Congress of the APSR 2021 and make face to face conversation with many researchers.