Dr. James Chalmers aka Dr. Bronchiectasis Shares his Thoughts

I wanted nothing more than to go to Scotland this past July for the World Bronchiectasis Conference. Unfortunately, it conflicted with my family reunion, so I relied on Judy Schloss, the clinical manager at Monaghan Medical, to send me photos.

More than anything, I wanted to visit my hero, Dr. James Chalmers’ laboratory. For me, it would’ve been like seeing the Batcave! You might think I’m exaggerating, but Dr. Chalmers (aka Dr. Bronchiectasis) actually led a proof-of-concept trial called BATMAN (Bronchiectasis Alpha-1 Augmentation Trial).

Dr. Chalmers has been our advocate from the very beginning. Even when he was told that bronchiectasis research was a dead end, he persisted.

In a recent video, he shared this powerful message:
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“The greatest unmet need for bronchiectasis, from my point of view as a clinician caring for these patients, is to have better, more effective treatments for the disease.

Unfortunately, around 50% of patients with bronchiectasis, according to registry data, experience two or more exacerbations per year. The quality of life of our patients and their symptoms, the scores that they get on questionnaires, show that the impairment caused by this disease is as bad or worse than other respiratory conditions like COPD, asthma, or cystic fibrosis. 

So, patients are really suffering with frequent exacerbations and bad symptoms, but there are not enough effective treatments that patients can use. Most patients are reliant on physiotherapy and antibiotics, which relieve some of the symptoms but don’t modify the course of the disease and don’t prevent these exacerbations or improve these symptoms. 

So we urgently need better treatments, and that means that we need investment into clinical trials and also into translational science in order to understand the disease better, find better treatment targets, and help us to develop those new therapies.”

In the fight against bronchiectasis, Dr. Chalmers reminds us that real superheroes don’t wear capes—they wear lab coats.