Meir Kryger 

Meir Kryger MD

 

 

Meir Kryger, MD, FRCPC, is Professor Emeritus at the Yale School of Medicine. He joined the Yale faculty as a Professor in 2011. Previously he was Director of Sleep Research and Education at Gaylord Sleep Medicine, in Connecticut, and before that, Professor of Medicine, at the University of Manitoba where he was Director of the Sleep Disorders Centre at St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre, the first clinical laboratory studying patients with sleep breathing problems in Canada. Dr. Kryger was the first to diagnose and report obstructive sleep apnea in North America.

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He has retired from seeing patients in clinic and continues to teach Mystery of Sleep at Yale.

 

In his publications, he shares what he has learned from treating more than 40,000 patients and from medical research. Dr. Kryger has published more than 200 research articles and book chapters.

 

He is the chief editor of the most widely used textbook in sleep medicine, The Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine, which is currently in its seventh edition.  His recent books include Atlas of Clinical Sleep Medicine and in 2019 Kryger's Sleep Medicine Review. His latest book for the public is The Mystery of Sleep (publication date March 2017) which has been translated into Chinese. In 2019 he published Sleep in Art and in 2020 a novel, The Man Who Couldn't Stay Awake, and most recently edited Rose's Odyssey.

Some of his research has had important impact on clinical practice. His laboratory was the first to show the feasibility of ventilating people with post-polio syndrome at home using noninvasive techniques. His laboratory elucidated the interaction between heart failure and sleep respiration and published the first systematic study of oxygen in this condition. He reported the first use of computers in analyzing sleep breathing patterns and validated techniques of monitoring in which diagnostic data, as well as therapeutic data on CPAP, is obtained during the same night. Kryger's laboratory has obtained research funding from government and industry sources from Canada, France, and the U.S. His research has been funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

 

Education

Kryger graduated from the McGill University Medical School in 1971. He did his internship at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago and internal medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital of McGill University in Montreal. He trained in pulmonary medicine at the University of Colorado, followed by two years of research training. He is boarded in Internal Medicine and Pulmonary Medicine in the USA, and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Sleep Medicine.

 

Honours and Service

He has served the sleep medicine community in many roles including as president of both the Canadian Sleep Society and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. He is on the Board of Directors of the National Sleep Foundation in Washington,D.C., serving as Board Chair 2007 to 2009. In 1996, he received the William C. Dement Award for Academic Achievement in Sleep Medicine. In 2011 he received from the Canadian Sleep Society at the meeting of the World Association of Sleep Medicine a Distinguished Scientist Award, in 2014 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Sleep Foundation, and the Mary Carskadon Award from the Sleep Research Society. In 2019, he received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the American Thoracic Society and was inducted into the St. Boniface Hospital Research Hall of Fame.  In 2022 he received the Nathaniel Kleitmen Award - the highest honor in sleep medicine. He has trained medical practitioners and researchers in sleep medicine from Canada, Australia, China, Japan, and Greece.