The Centre for Heart Lung Innovation (HLI), previously known as iCAPTURE and the JHRC, was established as the Pulmonary Research Laboratory in 1977 by Drs. James Hogg (2013 Gairdner Wightman Award Winner) and Peter Pare. Since then it has grown dramatically in scope, size, and worldwide impact. Basic and clinician scientists work together in an exciting multidisciplinary environment to address vital issues in heart, lung, and critical care disease. Situated within Providence Health Care’s St. Paul’s Hospital, a University of British Columbia teaching hospital, the HLI is a translational research centre using our basic molecular and cellular research discoveries to develop innovative approaches to prevent and treat human disease through our complementary and connected clinical research. Our focus is on developing solutions to the biggest challenges: atherosclerosis and heart failure, emphysema and other chronic pulmonary diseases, severe infections and multiple organ failure. These diseases are leading causes of morbidity, mortality and cost to society in Canada and the world. Combined, these diseases are by far the greatest killers. We seek out the underlying causes so that we can develop strategies for prevention and treatment. We link our basic discoveries to improved health care through clinical research, teaching, and by translating new knowledge into clinical practice at St. Paul’s Hospital and around the world. Since disease involves both the patient and the environment, our focus on prevention seeks to understand and prevent those patient-environment interactions that lead to disease and disability. The Centre for Heart Lung Innovation has a unique multidisciplinary milieu that takes the best attributes of a busy tertiary care hospital (St. Paul’s) and combines them with the best attributes of a leading academic institution (UBC) to generate novel insight, knowledge, and solutions. It is not uncommon within the HLI to find a mathematician, a pathologist, a surgeon, and a basic scientist, joining forces to attack otherwise intractable problems. We link basic science with clinical innovation; we link a broad knowledge of inflammation with focused investigation into heart, lung, and critical care disease; we link universities, faculties, and departments together to innovate in ways that otherwise are not possible.