Sleep Researchers Win Lasker Award for Orexin-Narcolepsy
Emmanuel Mignot and Masashi Yanagisawa received the 2026 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for their independent discoveries linking orexin
Two pioneering scientists have won a top medical prize for uncovering the cause of narcolepsy. Emmanuel Mignot and Masashi Yanagisawa received the 2026 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for discovering that a deficiency in the brain chemical orexin triggers the disorder's sudden sleep attacks and loss of muscle tone.
Their separate research pathways converged on the same fundamental mechanism regulating sleep and wakefulness. The findings have directly fueled the development of new FDA-approved medications, including orexin-targeting drugs for both insomnia and narcolepsy.
Independent Paths to a Breakthrough
Masashi Yanagisawa, a professor at the University of Tsukuba, first isolated peptides he named orexins while hunting for molecules that activate unknown brain receptors. He made a key observation in lab mice. Animals bred to lack orexin experienced sudden collapses during their active nighttime period, a state strikingly similar to human narcolepsy.
“I am tremendously honored to receive the 2026 Lasker Award,” Yanagisawa said in a release. He expressed particular delight at seeing the prestigious recognition given to the field of sleep science.
Meanwhile, Emmanuel Mignot, a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, approached the puzzle from a different angle. He studied narcolepsy in dogs, which can inherit the condition. His work identified mutations in the gene for the orexin receptor-2. When his team analyzed human spinal fluid, they found orexin was present in healthy people but was undetectable in seven out of nine narcolepsy patients.
Mignot concluded that most human narcolepsy involves a loss of orexin production, likely from an autoimmune reaction. “That’s the kind of discovery you make once in your entire life,” Mignot told Stanford Medicine’s news center. “It was the most exciting finding because suddenly you knew the cause of a human disease.”
From Discovery to Treatment
The molecular understanding of wakefulness forged by these researchers has transformed sleep medicine. It provided a clear target for drug development. Pharmaceutical companies have since created two opposing classes of treatment based on manipulating the orexin system.
One class blocks orexin to quiet wakefulness for people with insomnia. The other aims to activate or replace orexin signaling for those with narcolepsy. A prime example is Takeda's drug oveporexton, marketed as Orzeyful. This orexin-activating medication received FDA approval for narcolepsy in August 2026.
The 2026 Lasker Awards Ceremony
The Lasker Awards are among biomedicine's most distinguished honors. Each category comes with a $250,000 honorarium. The 2026 ceremony will be held in New York City on September 17.
In other categories, the Lasker DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award went to Kunihiro Hattori, Takehisa Kitazawa, and Tomoyuki Igawa for inventing a bispecific antibody treatment for hemophilia A. The Lasker Bloomberg Public Service Award was given to actor Michael J. Fox for his advocacy work advancing Parkinson’s disease research.
