Past President - Omar Usmani

President

Dr. Omar Usmani (United Kingdom)

Dr. Omar Usmani Omar Usmani is a clinician scientist at Imperial College London (ICL). His doctoral research on inhaled drug deposition received the ICL-NHLI 2005 PhD Prize and an Alavi-Mandell award (American Society Nuclear Medicine). Omar has championed aerosol science, passionately contributing to research and education in aerosols in medicine. He has embedded aerosols science knowledge and inhaler training in the new medical curriculum at ICL. His research has received prestigious grants: 2017 US-FDA ($2.3M) project ‘Patient's perception of DPIs’; 2015 EU-Horizon-2020 grant ‘myaircoach: asthma inhaler m-health’ (E4.5M). In 2015 he was awarded the ISAM/AAAR Thomas T Mercer Award.

Omar’s first involvement with ISAM was during his residency training presenting his doctoral data on the podium at Interlaken 2001. In 2011, he co-chaired the ISAM Imaging Workshop Edinburgh-UK, which led to the ‘ISAM standards for lung imaging techniques’ (Newman, 2012). In 2015, he contributed on ISAM’s position paper ‘Bridging the gap between basic research and clinical efficacy of inhaled drugs’ (Darquenne, 2016). He also co-organised the ISAM 2015 Munich scientific programme with Gerhard Scheuch and Sabine Häussermann.

As Board member (2013-17), serving 2 maximum terms, his key contribution was strengthening ISAM’s link with the ERS. Omar organized the joint ISAM-ERS symposium at ISAM 2015 inviting ERS President-Elect Peter Barnes to deliver a Plenary. At the ERS 2015 congress, he secured a symposium session for ISAM, chaired by then ISAM-President Sunalene Devadason with >800 attendees. Omar’s continued lobbying for increased aerosol science visibility, successfully securing another co-badged ERS-ISAM symposium in 2019 ‘Recent clinical advances in inhalation therapy’ chaired by ISAM-President Chantal Darquenne, with podium talk by Past-President Rajiv Dhand.

ISAM’s recent strategic leadership direction has enabled successful collaborations with international societies ATS, ERS. As President nominee, I set myself realistic objectives for my tenure: 1]-Expand engagement to APSR and REG (Respiratory Effectiveness Group) ensuring ISAM-badged symposia; 2]-Build on the well-received monthly ISAM podcasts with talks now by our Networking Group Post-docs (our future leaders); 3]-Update the 2011 ERS/ISAM Taskforce statement ‘What pulmonary physicians should know about inhalers’. Ever a team player, I hope to count on your support to excel ISAM’s global reach.