Dr. Emmanuel Mignot and Dr. Masashi Yanagisawa Win the 2023 Breakthrough Prize

In September 2022, Dr. Emmanuel Mignot and Dr. Masashi Yanagisawa won one of the most prestigious scientific awards, the 2023 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, for discovering the cause of narcolepsy, a chronic neurological condition that impairs the brain’s ability to regulate the sleep-wake cycle. This discovery paves the way for new treatment development that brings hope to millions of people living with narcolepsy around the world, and their families.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Breakthrough Prize co-founder and co-founder of Google Sergey Brin presented Drs. Mignot and Yanagisawa the award at the ceremony on Saturday, April 12, 2025. The acceptance speech given by Dr. Mignot was made even more memorable by the presence of his chihuahua Watson—a dog with narcolepsy who has helped raise awareness of the condition worldwide.

Each year, the Breakthrough Prize awards $15 million across five prizes to top researchers working in the fields of physics, mathematics and life sciences. The Breakthrough Prize Awards, internationally recognized as “the Oscars® of Science,” brings together leaders in the science, tech and business alongside Hollywood stars to celebrate outstanding scientific achievements.

“Huge congratulations to Dr. Mignot and Dr. Yanagisawa for this well-deserved recognition of their historic discovery,” said Project Sleep’s President and CEO, Julie Flygare, JD. “The significance of their discovery cannot be overstated. It has given validation and hope to millions of people impacted by narcolepsy with significant drug development underway aiming to target the hypocretin/orexin system specifically for narcolepsy and idiopathic hypersomnia. The ramifications go further too, having led to thousands of publications about the hypocretin/orexin system in general and possible connections to addiction, obesity, and insomnia.“

To learn more about this discovery, check out our Science of Narcolepsy podcast and toolkit. To hear Dr. Mignot talk about hypocretin/orexin and narcolepsy, watch this video: