Professor Yves Dauvilliers, MD, PhD

Yves Dauvilliers, MD, PhD, is Professor of Neurology and Physiology, and Head of the clinical and research activity of the sleep laboratory at the University of Montpellier, France. He is the Coordinator of the French National Reference Network for Orphan Diseases (Narcolepsy, Hypersomnia, Kleine-Levin Syndrome) and Director of one research group in the Institute of Neuroscience INSERM, Montpellier. Yves is the author or co-author of more than 420 papers published in international and national peer-reviewed journals, several book chapters, and he also edited three French book related to sleep medicine; Yves has an h-Index of 65.

Professor Birgitte Rahbek Kornum, PhD

Birgitte Rahbek Kornum, PhD is an associate professor at University of Copenhagen in Copenhagen, Denmark. The current focus of her research is to understand how the immune system affects the sleep regulating networks of the brain. She is particularly interested in the hypocretin/orexin system, its involvement in sleep-wake neurophysiology and how it is affected by immune stimuli. In the neurologic sleep disorder narcolepsy, the hypocretin producing neurons in hypothalamus are lost, due to what is hypothesized to be an autoimmune attack on the neurons. The Kornum Lab has studied the details of the possible neuron-immune system interaction using patient samples, primary neuronal cultures, and animal models. The current research is focused on elucidating the role of the hypocretin neurons in the sickness response, and for this the lab uses animal models, in vivo electrophysiology, molecular biology tools and single cell RNA sequencing.

Birgitte R. Kornum did her post doctoral training at Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences in the lab of Dr. Emmanuel Mignot. During this time she was awarded the 2011 Young Scientist Award from the American Association of Sleep Medicine for her discovery of the association of P2RY11 with narcolepsy. In 2013, Dr. Kornum was awarded a Lundbeck foundation fellowship, and in 2015 she was elected member of the Young Academy of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.

Birgitte R. Kornum has a BSc degree in chemical engineering from the Danish Technical University (2000) and continued her training at University of Copenhagen, where she got a MSc degree in human biology (2003) and a PhD degree from the School of Neuroscience (2009). She has published >70 international peer reviewed papers, 6 book chapters, and 2 patent applications.

Professor Emmanuel Mignot, MD, PhD

Emmanuel Mignot, MD, PhD, is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He is internationally recognized for discovering the cause of narcolepsy. His research focuses on the neurobiology, genetics, and immunology of narcolepsy, a disorder caused by hypocretin (orexin) cell loss, with an indirect interest in the neuroimmunology of other brain disorders. Currently, Emmanuel is interested in analyses involving statistics and machine learning of polysomnography, clinical and biological data, including the combination of EEG, wearable biosensors, and genetic datasets.

Professor Giuseppe Plazzi, MD, PhD

Giuseppe Plazzi, MD and PhD, is a neurologist, chair of child neurology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and director of the Sleep Disorders, Narcolepsy and CNS Hypersomnias Center of the IRCCS – Istituto delle Scienze Neurologiche di Bologna. He serves as president of the Italian Sleep Society (AIMS), vice-president of the EU-Narcolepsy Network (EU-NN), board member of the European Sleep Research Society (ESRS) and co-chair of the rare neurological diseases panel of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN). He published more than 617 papers (h-index 65, citations > 16.500) in peer-reviewed journals, mostly in the field of sleep disorders, he serves on the editorial board of scientific journals in the field of sleep medicine and biology research, and, as sleep medicine expert, he has several collaborations with scientific and educational media.

Professor Thomas Roth, MD, PhD

Thomas Roth, MD, PhD primarily publishes on the epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis, comorbidity with other disorders, and treatment of insomnia. His research focuses on sleep loss, sleep fragmentation, and deviation from sleep processes, including pharmacological effects and sleep pathologies.

After serving as President of the Sleep Research Society and the Founding President of the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), Thomas became Chairman of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research Advisory Board at the National Institute of Health.

Thomas has also served on the Board of Directors of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS). In 2002, he received the NSF’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his accomplishments and contributions to sleep science, sleep medicine, and public health. He also received a Distinguished Research Award from the Sleep Research Society as well as the Nathanial Kleitman Award from the Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Thomas is the past Editor-in-Chief of the journal Sleep. He sits on the editorial boards of Sleep Reviews, Stress Medicine, Advances in Therapy, and Human Psychopharmacology. He has published over 500 manuscripts, 13 edited volumes, 250 chapters, and 621 abstracts.