Andrey Zinchuk Selected for ATS New Investigator Award

Andrey Zinchuk, MD, MHS, assistant professor of medicine in Yale’s Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine (Yale-PCCSM), received the American Thoracic Society (ATS) Assembly on Sleep and Respiratory Neurobiology James B. Skatrud New Investigator Award.

The award recognizes the career accomplishments and future promise of a new investigator working in respiratory neurobiology and sleep.

Zinchuk said he is pleased to receive this recognition from his peers. “This honor is an opportunity to show that this research is worthwhile and making a difference in people’s lives,” he said.

A sleep medicine researcher, Zinchuk focuses on personalized treatments for patients with sleep apnea. “We know that the most common treatment, continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, is hard to tolerate by about half the people who get the therapy,” he said. “My goal is to figure out who does well and who struggles before that happens and to tailor treatment to each individual.”

The physiological sleep apnea trait arousability, or how easily someone awakens from sleep, is one biomarker of CPAP success or failure, Zinchuk said. “It’s exciting because we can not only measure arousability in sleep studies to predict which people may struggle with CPAP therapy but also change it to help people sleep better,” he said.

Zinchuk is leveraging new methodologies to better phenotype patients with sleep apnea, according to Klar Yaggi, MD, MPH, professor of internal medicine (pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine). “He is helping to usher in a more precision-based approach to the care of patients with sleep-disordered breathing,” Yaggi said.

Brienne Miner, MD, MHS, assistant professor of medicine (geriatric medicine), notes that by improving treatment adherence in sleep apnea, Zinchuk is doing important work that will have immense benefits for patients and our health care system. “His work is driven not only by curiosity and intellect but also by his desire to improve the care of his patients, who are always at the center of what he does,” she said.

Zinchuk hopes that the ATS’s recognition of his work will raise awareness about applying cutting-edge science to the clinical domain of sleep apnea.

“We're on the edge of using this research to change patient outcomes,” Zinchuk said. “I'm really excited for the next stage of my career here at Yale.”

The Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine is one of the eleven 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 Twitter.