Dr. Lohinai has been engaged in both face-to-face group meetings and online project discussions, and has consistently provided clear, constructive guidance and support to his students, from research planning to problem-solving. He was honored with the Excellent Supervisor Award by the Centre for Translational Medicine.
Zoltan Lohinai is a lecturer at the Institute of Pathophysiology, Semmelweis University, who joined the CTM as a supervisor this academic year. As a specialist in pulmonology and medical oncology, he supports his students in their academic work in these fields. “One of my students is Theodor Penișoară, a resident pulmonologist. With him, we are researching the role of specific blood markers for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. This topic is intriguing because we have found that certain markers (called exerkines) are released in response to physical activity in both healthy people and patients with COPD, and that these markers have a positive effect on the body. Based on this, we would like to clarify which COPD patients are most likely to gain the greatest functional and clinical benefits from physical activity, and which are less likely to benefit. If we can figure this out, we can improve pulmonary rehabilitation for patients.”
Currently, researchers assume that even patients with advanced COPD can benefit from physical exercise. They believe this because, even in such cases, stationary bike training and interval training programs have shown promising results in cardiopulmonary exercise testing. “In our meta-analysis, we also examine the effect of physical activity on hand grip strength. This information is crucial because maintaining muscle strength throughout life is essential, not only for healthy individuals but also for patients. We also look at inflammatory markers, which can indicate who will experience a decrease in inflammatory parameters following rehabilitation and who will experience an increase. Clarifying this also helps to determine who will benefit most from rehabilitation.”
While Dr. Penișoară is a first-year Ph.D. student, Dr. Lohinai’s other student, Tibor Róbert Czégeni, is an MSc. student. He is a healthcare professional seeking to broaden his knowledge through CTM’s training program. His research aims to assess the impact of microbiome-based interventions on immunotherapy outcomes. “Since I am a pulmonary oncologist, we initially wanted to examine this issue only in relation to lung cancer, but then we broadened our research to include all types of solid tumors. This will enable us to provide a comprehensive understanding of the effects of microbiome-based interventions on immunotherapy outcomes. I think it is a great advantage that Tibor, as a healthcare professional in the field of nutritional science, was able to bring aspects to the research that physicians might not have necessarily considered. This shows how important a multidisciplinary approach is in scientific work.”
(Emese Szabó)