Dr. Monica Mullin
Positions
Assistant Professor
Cumming School of Medicine, Department of Medicine | Respiratory Medicine
Member
Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute
Contact information
Location
Office: HSC1422
Preferred method of communication
Administrative Assistant
Marc Salonga
Email: marc.salonga@ucalgary.ca
Office: 403.210.3866
Background
Biography
Dr. Monica Mullin is a respirologist and interventional pulmonologist at the University of Calgary with subspecialty expertise in lung cancer and thoracic procedures. She completed her Internal Medicine residency at Queen's University, followed by Respirology subspecialty training at the University of British Columbia. She subsequently undertook an Interventional Pulmonology Fellowship and Master of Public Health at University College London, where she also served as a Clinical Investigator with a focus on lung cancer screening through the SUMMIT study.
Dr. Mullin's research focuses on lung cancer screening optimization, implementation, and uptake; pulmonary nodule prognostication; and the management and outcomes of malignant pleural effusions. She has published widely in leading journals including The Lancet Oncology, CHEST, and Thorax, and has presented her work at major international conferences including the American Thoracic Society, the British Thoracic Society, and the World Conference on Lung Cancer.
In addition to her clinical and research activities, Dr. Mullin is committed to medical education and has taught at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She brings an international perspective to her work advancing lung cancer care in Alberta.
Research
Areas of Research
- Lung cancer screening optimization, implementation and uptake
- Pulmonary nodule prognostication
- Management and outcomes of malignant pleural effusions
Dr. Monica Mullin's research is centered on improving outcomes for patients at risk of or diagnosed with lung cancer, spanning early detection, diagnostic pathways, and advanced therapeutics.
Her most substantial contribution is through the SUMMIT study, a large-scale lung cancer screening trial in London enrolling over 12,000 high-risk smokers. As a research fellow and first author on multiple outputs from this cohort, she has examined how respiratory symptoms influence malignancy risk at screening, how frequently screen-detected cancers upstage during diagnostic assessment, and what factors drive delays between detection and treatment. This work directly informs the design of national lung cancer screening programmes in the UK and Canada.
Earlier in her career, Dr. Mullin led quality improvement initiatives in Ontario aimed at reducing delays in lung cancer diagnosis and staging, including the implementation of standardized triage pathways and radiology reporting templates, work published in the Journal of Oncology Practice and presented at the World Conference on Lung Cancer. In the domain of advanced lung cancer, she contributed to a first-in-human phase I clinical trial of MSC-TRAIL cell therapy, an innovative approach using engineered stem cells to target tumours, published in Cytotherapy. She has also published on real-world outcomes in EGFR-mutant lung cancer and regional disparities in lung cancer survival across Ontario.
Her interventional pulmonology research addresses the procedural side of cancer care, including robotic-assisted bronchoscopic biopsy of pulmonary nodules, combined airway and oesophageal stenting for malignant strictures, and simulation-based training to improve operator competency.
Collectively, Dr. Mullin's work addresses lung cancer across the full care continuum, from population-level screening and early detection through to diagnosis, intervention, and novel treatment, with a consistent focus on improving timeliness, accuracy, and equity of care.
Publications
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