Alen Juginović, M.D.
Are you interested in developing healthy sleep habits and achieving better sleep?
Meet Alen Juginović, M.D., physician and researcher at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, where he studies how poor sleep quality affects health and trains in the clinical diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of sleep disorders.
His scientific work focuses on uncovering the mechanisms through which sleep loss harms health, including its impact on colorectal cancer development, neurodegenerative disorders, and overall gut health. In his clinical training, Dr. Juginović is dedicated to the diagnosis and management of numerous sleep disorders—ranging from insomnia, sleep apnea, and narcolepsy to parasomnias, circadian rhythm disorders, restless legs syndrome, REM sleep behavior disorder, treatment-resistant complex sleep disorders, and other rare sleep conditions. At Harvard, he also teaches the course “Neurobiology of Emotions and Mood Disorders.”
Are you looking for a specialist who will approach your sleep issues with special care and understanding?
Dr. Juginović is the lead author of the textbook Sleep Science Made Simple (Springer, 2025) and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, the official journal of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. He has published in leading scientific journals (including Cell), and his research and expert commentary have been featured in global outlets such as The New York Times and Forbes. He is a recipient of the European Citizen’s Prize of the European Parliament and the Harvard Brain Initiative Postdoc Pioneer Award, and he was nominated for Forbes’ “30 Under 30 Europe” list. Through his newsletter Sleepletter, public lectures, frequent media appearances, and invited talks at international conferences, he actively promotes sleep science. He also collaborates with sports clubs and elite athletes on personalized sleep optimization strategies aimed at enhancing both cognitive and motor performance.
Alen Juginović, M.D., is also the president and co-founder of the Croatian association Med&X, which aims to accelerate the development of Croatian biomedicine. Med&X achieves this through three flagship initiatives: international conferences, including Plexus, which have brought more than 2,500 participants from over 30 countries and 10 Nobel laureates to Croatia; the Accelerator program, a unique initiative that provides top Croatian medical students, physicians and scientists with 1–3 months of clinical and research training at leading institutions such as Harvard University, Yale, MIT, King’s College London, as well as hospitals like Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and Massachusetts General Hospital; and the Biomedical Forum, a network of leading Croatian scientists, physicians and policymakers from Croatia and abroad dedicated to strategic collaboration and the long-term advancement of Croatian biomedicine.