Cristina Longo: targeting asthma treatment from pregnancy

Meet Cristina Longo, IVADO professor and assistant professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Université de Montréal. 

A child’s asthma can take root during their mother’s pregnancy. A pharmacoepidemiologist and director of the  TARGET ASTHMA laboratory at CHU Sainte-Justine, Cristina Longo built her research program around a reality medicine has yet to fully integrate: asthma is not a single disease. Its biological subtypes, or endotypes, respond differently to the same treatments.

The link between maternal asthma exacerbations during pregnancy and a child’s subsequent disease trajectory is one of the avenues this program has opened. 

Her clinical starting point is also an economic problem. The biologic therapies that have come to market in recent years are highly effective for some patient profiles and offer little or no benefit for others — at significant cost. Prescribing without predicting means exposing patients to inadequate treatment while burdening a health system that can ill afford it. 

She develops algorithms trained on real-world data to predict which treatment will work for which patient profile. Her TAILOR-MADE project is the direct illustration: using multi-omic data, it aims to identify the molecular subtypes of asthma that can accurately predict treatment response in young children. 

In parallel, her PROMOTE project approaches the question through prevention. It aims to generate the first evidence on the safety of prenatal RSV vaccination in pregnant women with asthma. Health Canada currently recommends immunizing the infant rather than the mother, due to a lack of safety data in pregnancy. Cristina Longo is building that evidence from British cohorts, where the vaccine is already offered to all pregnant women. 

In both cases, the goal is the same: for every patient to receive the treatment suited to their biological reality, not just the standard one. 

It is a conviction shaped by years of working in a pediatric hospital, where she observed firsthand the gap between what research produces and what actually changes for an asthmatic child who walks through the door. Closing that gap is what drives her work.