Two university professors in Japan are working to make a difference in the lives of people who suffer from narcolepsy and cataplexy associated with narcolepsy.
Dr. Hiroshi Nagase and his colleague Dr. Masashi Yanagisawa have created a compound that helps with wakefulness and alleviates sleep issues. It has been successfully tested on mice and now they are weighing the possibility of testing the compound on humans. Their hope is to create a novel drug to treat narcolepsy and cataplexy.
Yanagisawa is the scientist who discovered the correlation between the neuropeptide orexin and cataplexy in 1998.
His favorite saying “Finding a good question is more difficult than solving it” illustrates his desire to unlock the secrets of sleep disorders.
Toward that end, both scientists are working with a team of researchers to find a cure for narcolepsy.
