Scientists at UC San Francisco discover gene that helps supercharge sleep

Would you like to be able to sleep just a few short hours each night, but still rise fully rested and revitalized to start the day? You may well be able to in the not-too-distant future, thanks to groundbreaking new work from researchers at the University of California, San Francisco.

The UC San Francisco scientists, whose previous work helped establish a genetic basis for sleep, have discovered a new gene that contributes to short sleep patterns of just 4-6 hours — but without any of the negative side-effects normally associated with too little sleep.

“We all know that good sleep is important for us to feel good the next day, and we spend a lot of time sleeping in our lives,” Ying-Hui Fu, professor of neurology and a member of UCSF’s Weill Institute for Neurosciences, told Digital Trends. “However, we have very little understanding on how our sleep is regulated, especially with regard to how many hours of sleep we really need.”

A decade ago, the research team discovered a genetic mutation responsible for making people sleep fewer hours per day and yet still function effectively. However, this mutation was sufficiently rare that it could not be used to explain all natural short sleepers. The researchers have now bolstered this discovery by finding a second related mutation. This second gene adds to geneticists’ understanding of how sleep efficiency is regulated. A paper describing the work was recently published in the journal Neuron.

“Understanding that sleep is controlled by genes as a concept is very important,” Fu said. “People used to think that we can just manipulate our sleep and not have a consequence. But now we know that if your genes wire you to be morning larks [or] night owls, or short sleepers [or] long sleepers, you need to respect your body and follow what your body needs to do.”

But as much as we’re all for understanding our natural cycles, what if we’re the kind of people doomed to forever be struggling against early morning starts, but trapped in a 9-5 world we never created? Help may (eventually) be at hand, courtesy of those people fortunate enough to be blessed with superior genetics.

“Genetic editing is a hot topic right now, but it’s hard to predict when this will be possible,” Fu said. “More realistically will be some therapeutic drugs to mimic the effects of mutation. This could be helping people with sleep problems and regular people just wanting to enhance sleep efficiency.”

Or, you know, maybe we could just quit our job and move to a relaxing desert island with no alarm clocks.

Related posts

Latest posts

Elon Musk says Grok 3 will outperform ChatGPT, DeepSeek in the coming weeks

Elon Musk has confirmed that his AI chatbot, Grok 3 is currently being finalized and will soon be available.

Presidents’ Day Dell Deals: XPS, G16, monitors and more on sale

This Presidents' Day a variety of Dell favorites are on sale, including laptops and top monitors.

The Garmin Lily 2 Active has a $50 discount, but don’t wait!

The Garmin Lily 2 Active is a stylish and feature-packed fitness wearable that has a $50 markdown. Get it today for only $250!

Samsung could reinvent the S Pen for its next foldable phone

Samsung might remove the digitizer layer on the Galaxy Z Fold 7 to make it thinner, and to accommodate that, it could follow a stylus strategy similar to Apple.

The Kindle Paperwhite just got a rare discount for Presidents’ Day

The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 2024 features a 7-inch e-ink screen with adjustable warmth. It's on sale with a rare 16% discount from Amazon for Presidents' Day.

Tired of downloading terrible apps? This Google Play Store update will help

The Google Play Store adds alerts that will help users spot frequently-uninstalled apps at a glance.

1Password vs. NordPass: which password manager is best in 2025?

1Password and NordPass are among the most popular password managers so I went hands on to compare features and find out which offers the best value.

This iBuyPower gaming PC with RTX 4060 is under $1,000 — for now

The iBuyPower Trace 7 Mesh gaming PC, which is on sale for only $900 from Best Buy, is powered by the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card and 16GB of RAM.

TikTok returns to Apple, Google app stores in U.S.

Apple and Google have returned TikTok to their app stores a month after removing it in response to a law requiring TikTok's owner to divest the app or face a ban.

Latest Galaxy Z Fold 7 design and S Pen leaks double down on previous rumors

Another wave of Galaxy Z Fold 7 rumors doubles down on what we've heard previously.