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Pneumonia – infection of the lungs by pathogens such as bacteria – are a major cause of hospitalization and death among Canadians. Many pneumonia survivors experience a severe and lasting loss of lung function; the consequences of this range from long-term disability to death. In fact, the likelihood of a pneumonia patient dying from a post-pneumonia complication is higher than the likelihood of a patient dying from the complications of a heart attack or stroke. Clearly, better treatments for recovering lung function are required for pneumonia patients, both to restore normal lung function after disease, and to prevent the deaths resulting from post-pneumonia complications. This proposal is directly focused on understanding how and why lung function is lost following pneumonia. This work may lead to treatments which restore lung repair in pneumonia patients, thereby preventing the loss of lung function that is an all too common result of pneumonia. This would directly improve the lung health of the approximately 11,000 Canadians who die of the lost lung function following pneumonia each year.