Prof. Luis de Lecea first identified two families of neuropeptides involved in sleep/wake regulation: cortistatin and the hypocretins(Hcrts), also known as orexins. In 2006 he moved to Stanford and pioneered optogenetic methods in vivo. During the last decade, his group has demonstrated a causal role of Hcrts, noradrenergic, cholinergic and dopaminergic neurons on wake stability in mice. Dr. de Lecea’s laboratory was first to introduce CRISPR-based gene editing methods to adult neurons and interrogate the function of gene families in behavior. Dr. de Lecea’s work has been very influential in the sleep field; he accumulates more than 160 manuscripts that have been cited over 27,000 times.