In recent years there has been great progress in the treatment of type 2 diabetes, with the appearance of drugs that use semaglutide as an active ingredient, a peptide similar to a hormone, glucagon-1 or GLP-1, which plays a counterbalancing role for insulin in blood sugar balance. When the sugar level drops, glucagon induces the liver to release glucose and when it rises, more insulin is generated, which is responsible for reducing the excess. In addition, semaglutide produces a notable reduction in appetite, which has made Ozempic, one of the drugs produced with this active ingredient, a success. Science magazine designated these anti-obesity drugs as the greatest scientific advance of 2023. Drucker, Habener, Holst and Mojsov share the recognition of having initiated and developed this research since the 1970s. From their different laboratories, they studied the hormones that intervene in the process and regulate the digestive metabolism, such as somatostatin, which inhibits the production of glucagon and insulin, and variants of glucagon, called GLP-1 and GLP-2, and they verified that this homeostasis system could be an effective therapeutic target against type 2 diabetes. Semaglutide (like some other similar molecules) works as an agonist of the glucagon GLP-1 receptor, therefore it inhibits the production of this hormone, reducing blood levels. blood sugar and improving the growth of betapancreatic cells, responsible for the production and release of insulin. In addition, it has been proven to have protective effects against vascular accidents in adults with obesity, an indication recently authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). For his part, Friedman discovered another hormone in 1994, leptin, which is generated in fat cells or adipocytes and acts on the brain region that controls appetite. It is a system in balance: the more fat there is, the more leptin is produced, which decreases appetite, reducing the body’s fat and therefore the production of leptin. In the case of obese people, this mechanism is unbalanced. He has also studied the genetic predisposition to obesity.
Daniel J. Drucker (Montreal, Canada, June 26, 1956) graduated in Medicine from the University of Toronto in 1980. He did his medical internship between 1980 and 1981 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and his residency at the University of Toronto , between 1980 and 1984. In 1984 he obtained a scholarship to work at the Massachusetts General Hospital and, in 1987, he joined the Toronto General Hospital, where he worked until 2021. Since 2006 he has been a senior researcher at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute from Mount Sinai Hospital. He combines his research with teaching at the University of Toronto, where he has been a professor since 1987 and a professor since 1996. He is the author of some 430 scientific publications and 33 patents. According to Google Scholar, it has received 89,195 citations and its h-index is 148. Drucker was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada and is a member, among other institutions, of the Royal Society of London (Prince of Asturias Prize for Communication and Humanities 2011) and the national academies of Sciences and Medicine of the United States. Among the numerous recognitions with which he has been awarded are the Banting Medal for Scientific Achievement from the American Diabetes Association (2014); the Rolf Luft Prize from the Karolinska Institute (Sweden, 2017); appointment as Keith Harrison Memorial Lecturer by the Australian Endocrine Society (Australia, 2019); and the Warren Alpert Foundation awards, shared with Jens Juul Holst and Joel F. Habener (United States, 2020), Canada Gairdner International from the Gairdner Foundation (Canada, 2021), Wolf in Medicine (Israel, 2023) and VinFuture in the category Innovators with Outstanding Achievements in Emerging Fields from VinFuture Foundation (Vietnam, 2023). He has been included, along with Joel Habener, Svetlana Mojsov and Jens Juul Holst, on the list TIMEHEALTH magazine’s 100 most influential people in healthcare in 2024 TIME.
Jeffrey M. Friedman (Orlando, USA, July 20, 1954) graduated in Medicine in 1977 from Albany Medical College, where he stayed as a medical resident until 1980. He was a postgraduate fellow at the School of Medicine of the Cornell University and received his doctorate in 1986 from Rockefeller University. His professional career has been linked to the Howard Hughes Institute of this university, first as an assistant researcher, then as an associate researcher and since 1988 as holder of the Marilyn M. Simpson professorship. According to Scopus, he has published 238 scientific articles, has received 59,201 citations and has an h-index of 90. He is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He has received, among many others, the Danone International Nutrition Award (Spain, 2007); the awards, shared with Douglas Coleman, Shaw of Life Sciences and Medicine (Hong Kong, China, 2009), Albert Lasker of Basic Medical Research (United States, 2010) and BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge of Biomedicine (Spain, 2012) ; the King Faisal in Medicine (Saudi Arabia, 2013), the Wolf in Medicine (Israel, 2019) and the Breakthrough in Life Sciences (United States, 2020).
Joel F. Habener (born June 29, 1937, United States) received his BS from the University of Redlands in 1960 and his M.D. from the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, in 1965. He spent time as a resident intern at the John Hopkins University School of Medicine (1965-67) and at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Since 1973 he has combined research, teaching and clinical activity as professor of Medicine at Harvard University and director of the Laboratory of Molecular Endocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 2006 he was named professor emeritus and remains active. He is the author of more than 450 scientific publications and, according to Scopus, he has received 38,332 citations and his h-index is 103. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States and the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and has received, among others , the Warren Alpert Foundation awards, shared with Jens Juul Holst and Daniel J. Drucker (United States, 2020), the Canada Gairdner International of the Gairdner Foundation (Canada, 2021) and the VinFuture in the category Innovators with Outstanding Achievements in Emerging Fields from the VinFuture Foundation (Vietnam, 2023). He has been included, along with Daniel Drucker, Svetlana Mojsov and Jens Juul Holst, on the list TIMEHEALTH magazine’s 100 most influential people in healthcare in 2024 TIME.
Jens Juul Holst (Copenhagen, Denmark, August 1, 1945) graduated in 1970 and received his doctorate in 1978 in Medical Sciences from the University of Copenhagen. He combined his studies with clinical practices and research at the Bispebjerg Hospital and later, as a teacher and scientist at the Department of Medical Physiology at the University of Copenhagen, from 1977 to the present. In 2010 he was appointed scientific director of the Center for Basic Metabolic Research at Novo Nordisk Laboratories, based at the University of Copenhagen. He is co-founder of the companies Antag Therapeutics and Bainan Biotech. He has published more than two thousand articles in scientific journals and is co-author of 10 patents. According to Google Scholar, he accumulates 177,054 citations and has an h-index of 207. Holst is a member of the International Union of Physiological Sciences (2023), the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters and the Danish Academy of Natural Sciences, among others. . Among the awards he has recently received, the Warren Alpert Foundation awards stand out, shared with Daniel J. Drucker and Joel F. Habener, (United States, 2020), the Canada Gairdner International from the Gairdner Foundation (Canada, 2021), the Banting Medal for Scientific Achievement from the American Diabetes Association (2021), the Novo Nordisk Foundation Lecture from the Novo Nordisk Foundation (Denmark, 2023), the VinFuture in the Innovators with Outstanding Achievements in Emerging Fields category from the VinFuture Foundation (Vietnam, 2023). He has been included, along with Joel Habener, Daniel Drucker and Svetlana Mojsov, on the list TIMEHEALTH magazine’s 100 most influential people in healthcare in 2024 TIME.
Svetlana Mojsov (Skopje, North Macedonia, December 8, 1947) studied physics-chemistry in Belgrade and graduated in 1972 from Rockefeller University (USA). There she worked with the 1984 Nobel Prize in Chemistry Robert Merrifield and specialized in the synthesis of peptides. She later moved to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she identified the GLP-1 peptide, synthesized it and studied its function, in addition to developing antibodies against some of its sequences. In the nineties she returned to Rockefeller University. Despite her role in the discovery and study of GLP-1, her name was not recognized until she initiated a lawsuit demanding that articles appearing in The New York Times, Nature and cell. Magazine Science published a lengthy article in September 2023 explaining and acknowledging his contribution. Scopus collects 41 scientific publications, 5,032 citations and an h-index of 28. He has received the VinFuture awards in the category of Innovators with Outstanding Achievements in Emerging Fields from the VinFuture Foundation (Vietnam, 2023) and the Pearl Meister Greengard from the Rockefeller University (United States). United, 2024). She has been included, along with Joel Habener, Daniel Drucker and Jens Juul Holst, on the list TIMEHEALTH magazine’s 100 most influential people in healthcare in 2024 TIME.
