SAN DIEGO -- Interior designer Deborah Locke-Kahn is a night owl. It's been that way her entire life.

"My father would knock on my door in the morning and say, 'You are wasting the best hours of the day,' and I would say, 'Those are your hours, not my hours,'" Locke-Kahn said.

While most of us are sleeping, Locke-Kahn is doing chores, working on new designs and simply living life to the fullest in the wee hours.

"It's my most productive hours. Ten o'clock is when I do my baking, I do artwork, or any paperwork," she said.

"Some of us are designed to get up early and some of us are designed to stay up late," said University of California San Diego sleep expert Dr. Daniel Kripke.

Kripke said people like Locke-Kahn have a bio-chemical malfunction within their body's internal 24-hour clock. It's called delayed sleep phase syndrome.

"It is a medical condition that they sometimes can't help. They are not all lazy, not all ornery, they are just doing what their body is making them do," Kripke said.

Kripke and his research team are trying to find the gene that resets the body's clock.

"Once we find the gene, we will eventually be able to find ways of making the gene slow down if it's overactive or increasing its function if its under active, that will basically speed up or slow down the body clock -- like you would reset your wristwatch," he said.

Two hundred night owls are needed to take part in the UCSD study. Volunteers will donate a blood sample and wear a wrist device that will measure activity and light exposure over a two week period.

"It will record in its computer memory every time your wrist moves," Kripke said.

Locke-Kahn said she hopes the study will eventually help other night owls adjust to daytime life.

She said she is still struggling.

"I sort of fade at 4 p.m. or 5 p.m., but then I get a second wind and I am off," she said.

If your body clock is out of phase and you are 25 or older and would like to participate in the study, call UCSD at (858) 534-7206.