Episode 22: Dr Craig Heller, Professor of Biology at Stanford University

Dr Craig Heller is a professor of Biology at Stanford University. He holds a PhD in biology from Yale University. Craig is a physiologist and biologist at Stanford and is a world expert on the science of temperature regulation. Dr Heller has a wide breadth of knowledge of biology. He conducts extensive research in exercise physiology, including examining fatigue in athletes and has developed an instrument that allows increased exercise without fatigue.

Dr Heller’s research focus for over 40 years has been in the areas of physiology and neurobiology of temperature regulation, hibernation, sleep, circadian rhythms, and most recently learning and memory. Currently, he is studying neural mechanisms controlling arousal states and arousal state transitions, the function of sleep, and the neural mechanisms of circadian rhythms. Research on human exercise physiology focuses on the effects of body temperature on physical conditioning and performance. The focus on Down syndrome is exploring the mechanism whereby the reduction of GABA activity restores learning and memory in DS mice and also in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease.