Ryu To Receive ATS Rising Star Award

Wonnie Ryu, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine in Yale School of Medicine’s Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine (Yale PCCSM), is the recipient of the American Thoracic Society (ATS) Assembly on Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology (RCMB) Rising Star Award.

The award recognizes early junior faculty with a trajectory of achievements in a scientific area of the RCMB Assembly who demonstrate exemplary promise for a future of achievement, according to the ATS website.

Ryu will accept the award at the 2025 ATS International Conference, on May 19, in San Francisco, California, where he will also present his work on the innate immune system in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).

“The work in my lab, much of which has been shaped by the mentorship of Dr. Erica Herzog, has shown that the innate immune system is more involved than what was previously attributed to IPF,” said Ryu. "We have discovered that we may be able to attenuate pulmonary fibrosis by inhibiting different innate immune receptors such as TLR9 and cGAS.”

The award is particularly meaningful to Ryu because the recognition of his peers in the pulmonary fibrosis and lung biology communities reinforces that the science he is pursuing has significant potential to change how IPF is viewed and treated, he said.

As he looks ahead, Ryu is encouraged by the scientific strides made over the last few years. He believes scientists are on the cusp of several breakthroughs in IPF.

“We are working hard to find a cure for this disease, and there is a new drug that is close to approval by the FDA as well as several more in the pipeline,” he said. “Over the next five to 10 years, we will discover more about what causes IPF and how to best treat this disease.”

Erica Herzog, MD, PhD, John Slade Ely Professor of Medicine (Pulmonary) and professor of pathology, noted Ryu’s outstanding accomplishments despite his early career stage. “Dr. Ryu is the consummate physician-scientist, having made significant contributions to medicine through his research, clinical skills, and mentoring,” she said. “It has been an honor to participate in his career development over the last decade, and I can think of no individual more qualified for this prestigious award.”

“We are excited to see that Dr. Ryu’s accomplishments are now nationally and internationally recognized,” said Naftali Kaminski, MD, Boehringer Ingelheim Endowed Professor of Medicine and chief of Yale PCCSM. “His work is rigorous, influential, and very relevant to our patients. It’s also a great example of how NIH funding allows physician-scientists to make key discoveries that lead to the understanding, diagnosis and eventually cure of severe diseases such as pulmonary fibrosis that cause disability and premature death in so many Americans.”

The Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine is one of the ten sections within Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Internal Medicine. To learn more about Yale PCCSM, visit PCCSM's website, or follow them on Facebook and X/Twitter.