Congratulations to Professor Emmanuel Mignot (Stanford University) who along with Professor Masashi Yanagisawa (University of Tsukuba) are recipients of the 2026 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for their pioneering work in identifying orexin—a brain peptide that controls wakefulness—and discovering that orexin deficiency causes narcolepsy. Type 1 narcolepsy is a condition that occurs in approximately 1 in 2000 persons and is characterized by severe daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, hypnagogic hallucinations, and sleep paralysis.
