Global Sleep Research

To summarize a few major research contributions of Dr. Pak's team to the literature to date:

1) While studying the impact of continuous positive airway pressure on inflammatory biomarkers, Dr. Pak and her team found that CPAP reduces inflammatory marker, ICAM-1 after 2 years of treatment. This work has significance as it may decrease the rate of progression of sleep apnea related cardiovascular disease. This work was funded by NIH and recognized by an award by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

​2) In exploring the metabolomic differences underlying sleepiness, Dr. Pak conducted a study at the University of Pennsylvania which was the first to identify that lowered choline nutrient is linked to sleepiness and paves the way for research exploring interventions aimed at treating sleepiness and cardiovascular disease. This work was funded by the NIH and the Mayo Clinic. ​

3) Dr. Pak’s candidate gene study was the first to identify a variant on the inflammatory PDE4D gene linked to sleepiness in the general population in Brazil, which is a potential target area for treatments of sleepiness, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer's. This paper also discusses how PDE4 inhibition has also been demonstrated to produce protective effects against neuronal inflammation and apoptosis mediated by cAMP/CREB signaling in a rats injected with β-amyloid to mimic the pathological mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease. This work was funded by the NIH and recognized by an award by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.