Punnam Chander Veerati is a post-doctoral early career researcher at the Priority Research Centre for Healthy Lungs, HMRI and the University of Newcastle, Australia. Dr Veerati works primarily on asthma research focusing on models of airway bronchoconstriction and viral induced asthma exacerbations. Dr Veerati was awarded a PhD degree from The University of Newcastle in 2019 for investigating "the role of mechanical forces in asthma pathogenesis" under the supervision of Conj. A/prof Christopher Grainge. Dr Veerati successfully established an in-vitro model of bronchoconstriction where airway epithelial cells obtained from asthma donors were fully differentiated and mechanical force was induced by the application of an apical compression on cells to mimic human bronchoconstriction. The main findings were the suppression of viral induced innate immune responses following compression. He presented his work in various national (TSANZSRS) and international (ATS & ERS) conferences.