The pioneers of obesity-drugs win the Lasker Award for medical science
The Lasker Awards: The Three Nobel Prizes for Clinical Research on Obesity and Disease: Oprah Winfrey, GLP-1, and Dr. Zhijian Chen
Oprah Winfrey was the first person to reveal her weight loss with an Ozempic-like drug. “It’s a brain disease,” a prominent obesity doctor explained on a “60 Minutes” episode about the drugs. TheObesity isDisease is a discover page on TikTok.
Diagnosis by B.M.I. was always imprecise; in an era of remarkably effective weight loss drugs, it’s untenable. Consider that 40 percent of American adults are classified as having obesity with a B.M.I. of 30 or above. With new treatments that cost upward of $1,000 per person per month, along with supply shortages, how to define obesity is more than just a fight over nomenclature. It is about knowing who is ill and how to best use health care resources. It’s about ending the murkiness that has surrounded obesity diagnosis for decades.
The anti-obesity drugs act on a hormone called GLP-1 which lowers blood-sugar levels and controls appetite. The trio, recognized with a Lasker in the clinical-research category, will share a US$250,000 prize.
Biomedical scientists are enthusiastic about the increasing recognition of GLP-1 research, which was initially aimed at treating diabetes. “I’ve been working on this for 30 years, and for a long time nobody cared,” says Randy Seeley, an obesity specialist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The situation over the last few years has changed a lot. We now have therapies that are helping people.
Other recipients of this year’s Lasker Awards include Zhijian ‘James’ Chen at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, who was honoured in the basic-research category for discovering how DNA triggers immune and inflammatory responses. Two people from the Centre for AIDS Program of Research in South Africa, which is currently based in Dublin, have been recognized for their work in developing approaches to prevent and treat HIV infections.
The anthill that moves: Honoring Elizabeth Habener, Drina Mojsov and Richard Di Marchi for her work in GLP-1 research
Habener, an endocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, was a leader in discovering the GLP-1 hormone in the 1980s. He was interested in understanding the hormones involved in type 2 diabetes, a condition in which the body doesn’t produce enoughinsulin or has trouble using it to absorb sugar from the blood.
Mojsov spoke out about the lack of recognition for her work last year when she was a student at Rockefeller University. She has received a number of awards over the years. She says she is happy that people are reading her work since she is getting awards.
Each prize in a science discipline is limited to no more than three winners, and the challenge will be to select the most deserving recipients. The research behind GLP-1-based drugs have been honored by other awards, includingJens Juul Holst at the University of Copenhagen and Richard Di Marchi at Indiana University in Bloomington.
“It’s 10,000 ants that move the anthill, and we’re trying to pick out the three ants that made the most difference,” Seeley says. “You could come up with a dozen names of people, at least, who have made seminal contributions to the field.”
Oprah Winfrey, Dr Zhijian Chen and Richard Di Marchi have won the Lasker Award for their research on GLP-1, a hormone that helps regulate blood- sugar levels and controls appetite. The trio, recognised with a Lasker in the clinical-research category, will share a US$250,000 prize. “It’s a brain disease,” a renowned obesity doctor said about the drugs.