A team of researchers at UBC couldn’t go to Beijing – so they brought Beijing to Vancouver. The Air Pollution Exposure lab, featured on PBS ReInventors, is a plexiglass box filled with diesel exhaust calibrated to mimic the air quality of Beijing.
Participants spend two hours in the box, which is not long enough to cause damage but gives researchers insight into ways of dealing with air pollution in developing cities.
The study was led by Professor Chris Carlsten, Head of Respiratory Medicine and Chair in Occupational and Environmental Lung Disease at UBC.