Prof. Dr. Gert Jan Lammers

As a neurologist, I work four days a week at SEIN, expertise centre for epilepsy and sleep medicine in Heemstede, and one day a week at LUMC in the department of neurology. The sleep-wake centre in Heemstede was set up by me in 2013 and from then on I was medical head until early 2024. SEIN actually acts as an academic centre for the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders in the absence of such a centre in any of the academic hospitals in the Netherlands. There is a close relationship with the neurology department at LUMC. The mainly clinical scientific research focuses mainly on disorders characterised by excessive daytime sleepiness, in particular narcolepsy, and mostly takes place in close cooperation with (other research groups) in the LUMC. There are also extensive collaborations nationally (University of Amsterdam, Kempenhaeghe) and internationally (European Narcolepsy Network, Universities of Bern and Lausanne, University of Lyon, and Harvard University).

In 2000, we discovered in collaboration with researchers at Stanford University, that narcolepsy is caused by a selective disappearance of hypocretin-producing cells in the brain (hypothalamus). Among other things, this led to essential new insights into the regulation of sleep and wakefulness, and into the evolutionary entanglement between sleep and other basal functions, especially metabolism. But also to the development of new classes of medication: both hypocretin antagonists and recently hypocretin agonists.
Current research, still often in international research contexts, focuses mainly on the cause, implications and treatment of the loss of hypocretin-producing cells.
The research is embedded at LUMC in the theme "Neuroscience".