Principal Investigator

Tillie L. Hackett, Ph.D., ATSF

Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics,
University of British Columbia

Tier I Canada Research Chair in Asthma and COPD Lung Pathobiology & Therapeutics

Phone Number: (604) 682-2344 x 62563

Fax Number: (604) 806-8351

Email: tillie.hackett@hli.ubc.ca

Alternate webpage: HLI

Bio

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Dr. Hackett received her BSc. (2002) in Biochemistry and Pharmacology and her Ph.D. (2006) in Cellular and Biological Sciences from the University of Southampton, in the UK under the mentorship of Dr. J.A. Warner and Prof. S.T. Holgate. In 2006, Dr. Hackett joined the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation (HLI) for her postdoctoral fellowship with Drs D.A. Knight and T. Bai. In 2010, she undertook additional postdoctoral training at the University Medical Centre Groningen with Prof. D.S. Postma and Dr. H.I. Heijink. In 2012, she was awarded a Parker B. Francis Foundation career-transition fellowship under the mentorship of Dr. Hogg. Dr. Hackett joined the Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology, & Therapeutics as an Assistant Professor in 2013, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2016.

Dr. Hackett is an internationally recognized leader in ultra-resolution biomedical imaging modalities and human in vitro models to investigate and treat the pathobiology of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which daily affects the ability of over 4.5 million Canadians to breathe. Dr. Hackett’s research has been formally recognized by over 35 awards, including the Parker B. Francis Fellowship (2012), Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator Award (2014), and the UBC Faculty of Medicine Distinguished Researcher Award (2018). In 2018, she was named an Inaugural American Thoracic Society Fellow (100 awarded), a mark of distinction and recognition for accomplishments and dedication to the society and field of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine. In 2020, Dr. Hackett was awarded a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Asthma and COPD Lung Pathobiology & Therapeutics. Dr. Hackett has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and ranks in the top 0.2% of 157,339 published authors worldwide on obstructive lung diseases (Expertscape.com).

Since 2014, Dr. Hackett has served as the Director of the HLI James C. Hogg Lung Tissue Biobank. Established in 1977, it is one of the largest biobanks in the world, enabling researchers from academia, health authorities, and industry to access comprehensively phenotyped lung samples from over 3,000 patients. Between 2013 – 2018, Dr. Hackett served as the Associate Director of the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation.

Dr. Hackett has served as the primary supervisor for 3 MSc and 8 PhD students, 5 postdoctoral fellows, 4 co-op students, 9 summer students, 3 clinical fellows, and 4 BSc Honours students who have collectively won over 68 fellowships, travel awards, and best presentation awards in the last 5 years. Since 2017, she has been recognized annually for Excellence in Student Teaching by the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences.

Areas of Research Interest

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• Understanding the contribution of dysregulated epithelial repair to airway remodeling.
• Targeted Pathology Phenotyping to understand small airways disease in asthma, COPD and IPF.
• The contribution of sex-differences to small airways disease in COPD.
• Spatial, single-cell imaging to understand the inflammation and remodeling in lung disease.
• Human Lung Cell Repository and human In vitro models.

Awards

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