Laurent Brochard is Director of the Interdepartmental Division of Critical Care Medicine at the University of Toronto since 2014. He holds the Keenan Chair in Critical Care and Acute Respiratory Failure. At St Michael’s Hospital in Toronto and in the Keenan research centre, he runs a clinical research laboratory and the Centre of Excellence in Mechanical ventilation (coemv.ca). He leads the PLUG (Pleural Pressure Working group), and international group of researchers committed to advancing knowledge in respiratory physiology in acute respiratory failure. He is Deputy Editor of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical care Medicine. He has more than 500 publications and an h-index of 100.