Thomas S. Kilduff named a Fellow of the AAAS

Jan 22 2010

SRI International, an independent nonprofit research and development institute, announced today that Thomas S. Kilduff, Ph.D., director of SRI International's Center for Neuroscience, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The award, announced in the December 18, 2009 issue of the journal Science, recognizes researchers' efforts toward advancing science applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished. Dr. Kilduff was honored for his contributions in neuroscience, particularly his role in the discovery of the neuropeptide hypocretin, and for his service to the Sleep Research Society. AAAS Fellows will be honored on Saturday, February 20, from 8 to 10 a.m. at the Fellows Forum during the 2010 AAAS Annual Meeting in San Diego.

"The goal of our research has been to understand the basic mechanisms that underlie sleep and wakefulness, to determine what exactly happens in sleep disorders such as narcolepsy, insomnia, and jet lag, and to develop better therapeutics for these conditions," said Dr. Kilduff. "I am very fortunate to have had excellent mentors early in my career and to have collaborated with many talented colleagues in this research area throughout my career."

Dr. Kilduff's current work focuses on the role of the hypocretin system in the maintenance of wakefulness, development of therapeutics for sleep disorders such as insomnia and narcolepsy (which is due to dysfunction of the hypocretin system), and the function of a novel population of sleep-active neurons in the cerebral cortex. Along with researchers at the Scripps Research Institute, he is co-discoverer of the hypothalamic peptide hypocretin, also known as orexin. He has published more than 200 research papers, reviews, book chapters and abstracts in multiple scientific journals, and has two patents pending. His research has been supported by government agencies such as the National Institute of Aging, the National Heart Lung Blood Institute, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, and the U.S. Army Research Office, as well as private foundations and pharmaceutical companies.

Dr. Kilduff has served as a visiting scientist in the Department of Molecular Biology at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, as a visiting professor at the Istituto di Biologia Cellulare at the Universit- degli Studi di Perugia in Perugia, Italy, and as a National Academy of Sciences National Research Council research associate at NASA-Ames Research Center. Prior to SRI, he was a senior research scientist at Stanford University's Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology in the Departments of Biological Sciences and Psychiatry, where he is currently a consulting professor. He has also served as a consultant for various governmental agencies and private foundations. Dr. Kilduff received his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Stanford University where he was awarded fellowships from the Danforth Foundation, the Grass Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Kilduff is the most recent SRI researcher to be named an AAAS Fellow. Ten additional SRI researchers, from the fields of molecular physics to artificial intelligence, have also been named AAAS Fellows in recognition of their important contributions to their fields.