Division of Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Medicine

Department: Internal Medicine

Email: patrick.nana-sinkam@vcuhealth.org

Patrick Nana-Sinkam MD, is Chief of the Division of Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Nana-Sinkam is a Professor of Medicine at VCU and the Linda Grandis Blatt Endowed Chair of Lung Cancer Research.

A native of Virginia, Dr. Nana-Sinkam received his undergraduate degree from Williams College, followed by an M.D. degree from Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He completed residency training in Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan, where he served as chief medical resident, and then completed a fellowship in Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

Prior joining the faculty at VCU in 2016, Dr. Nana-Sinkam held faculty appointments at The Ohio State University and the University of Colorado including as the Associate Director of the James Thoracic Center. A clinical and translational researcher, Dr. Nana-Sinkam’s work has focused on the molecular pathogenesis of lung cancer and identification of novel tumor biomarkers for early lung cancer detection and surveillance. He has served as a site PI for clinical trials in lung cancer biomarker discovery and development and has been funded by both the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institutes (NHLBI) and the National Cancer Institutes (NCI). He is the author of 140 primary scientific manuscripts, reviews and book chapters.

Nationally, he has held leadership roles within the American Thoracic Society including as a member of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Thoracic Oncology Assembly. Dr. Nana-Sinkam is an elected member of American Society for Clinical Investigation and serves on both the scientific advisory board of the American Lung Association and the Frederick National Laboratories Advisory Committee of the NCI.  He is currently an associate editor for the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and editorial board member of Journal of Thoracic Oncology and JCI Insight.

Dr. Nana-Sinkam is currently project lead in collaboration with Massey Cancer Center on a P20 grant investigating the intersection between social determinants of health and genetic risk of lung cancer among African Americans. In addition, he serves as a multi-principal investigator on the recently awarded NCI UG1 Cancer Screening Research Network award in which VCU will serve as one of seven centers nationally to lead the clinical feasibility study of a multicancer detection blood test across the Commonwealth. He also serves as Associate Director of the Wright Regional Center for Clinical and Translational Science and PI of the Wright Center K12 training award.

Patrick Nana-Sinkam, MD
Professor of Medicine
Chief, Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Medicine
Email: patrick.nana-sinkam@vcuhealth.org

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