Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biology and Biomedicine has gone in this seventeenth edition to Daniel Joshua Drucker (Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada), Joel Habener (Harvard University, United States), Jens Juul Holst (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) and Svetlana Mojsov (The Rockefeller University, United States) for fundamental biological discoveries that have driven the development of new generation drugs against diabetes and obesity.
The combined work of the four laureates elucidated the biological function of the hormone known as GLP-1, produced in the small intestine after food intake, and playing a fundamental role in both the maintenance of glucose levels and the regulation of appetite. “These findings have been exploited to develop novel therapeutics for treating type 2 diabetes and obesity,” in the words of the committee deciding the award.
In the 1980s, a group of scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital set out to explore the potential of some newly discovered hormones, including the GLP-1 peptide. Joel Habener succeeded in cloning the gene that coded for these hormones, while Svetlana Mojsov managed to identify GLP-1 and show that it stimulated insulin production in the pancreas of rats.
Daniel Drucker, then a posdoctoral fellow in the same hospital, was striving to get a more precise handle on the function of GLP-1. After multiple experiments, he finally deduced that insulin production only occurred in very short forms of the peptide, and only when blood sugar levels were high. In 1996, Drucker found that GLP-1 also suppressed appetite in animals, leading them to shed weight.
Since then, GLP-1 has marked a game-changing advance in the treatment of both type 2 diabetes and obesity. Various diabetes treatments were already in use, but this new generation based on GLP-1 dramatically reduces the risk of blood sugar levels dropping below the safe limit. In addition, disease prognosis improves considerably thanks to weight loss also associated to GLP-1, and these new medications have recently been observed to reduce the risk of other complications of type 2 diabetes, including blindness, kidney disease and heart attacks.
On the obesity score, the 15% to 20% reductions in body mass that have been achieved are unprecedented and, as with diabetes, GLP-1 drugs also reduce obesity-related risks, among them cardiovascular disease.
Q&A:
00:09 Professor Habener, could you explain what is the GLP-1 peptide and what has been your specific contribution to discovering its role in human health?
04:45 What have been the major milestones achieved so far in the pharmacological treatment of diabetes and obesity as a result of your discoveries?
06:11 What could be the future implications of your work in terms of curing addictions, neurological and cardiovascular disorders?
07:33 What is your opinion on the use of drugs derived from your research, such as Ozempic, for uses such as weight loss in cases other than obesity or overweight disease?
Discover more at: frontiersofknowledgeawards-fbbva.es/galardonados/joel-habener
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biology and Biomedicine has gone in this seventeenth edition to Daniel Joshua Drucker (Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Canada), Joel Habener (Harvard University, United States), Jens Juul Holst (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) and Svetlana Mojsov (The Rockefeller University, United States) for fundamental biological discoveries that have driven the development of new generation drugs against diabetes and obesity.
The combined work of the four laureates elucidated the biological function of the hormone known as GLP-1, produced in the small intestine after food intake, and playing a fundamental role in both the maintenance of glucose levels and the regulation of appetite. “These findings have been exploited to develop novel therapeutics for treating type 2 diabetes and obesity,” in the words of the committee deciding the award.
In the 1980s, a group of scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital set out to explore the potential of some newly discovered hormones, including the GLP-1 peptide. Joel Habener succeeded in cloning the gene that coded for these hormones, while Svetlana Mojsov managed to identify GLP-1 and show that it stimulated insulin production in the pancreas of rats.
Daniel Drucker, then a posdoctoral fellow in the same hospital, was striving to get a more precise handle on the function of GLP-1. After multiple experiments, he finally deduced that insulin production only occurred in very short forms of the peptide, and only when blood sugar levels were high. In 1996, Drucker found that GLP-1 also suppressed appetite in animals, leading them to shed weight.
Since then, GLP-1 has marked a game-changing advance in the treatment of both type 2 diabetes and obesity. Various diabetes treatments were already in use, but this new generation based on GLP-1 dramatically reduces the risk of blood sugar levels dropping below the safe limit. In addition, disease prognosis improves considerably thanks to weight loss also associated to GLP-1, and these new medications have recently been observed to reduce the risk of other complications of type 2 diabetes, including blindness, kidney disease and heart attacks.
On the obesity score, the 15% to 20% reductions in body mass that have been achieved are unprecedented and, as with diabetes, GLP-1 drugs also reduce obesity-related risks, among them cardiovascular disease.
Q&A:
00:09 Professor Habener, could you explain what is the GLP-1 peptide and what has been your specific contribution to discovering its role in human health?
04:45 What have been the major milestones achieved so far in the pharmacological treatment of diabetes and obesity as a result of your discoveries?
06:11 What could be the future implications of your work in terms of curing addictions, neurological and cardiovascular disorders?
07:33 What is your opinion on the use of drugs derived from your research, such as Ozempic, for uses such as weight loss in cases other than obesity or overweight disease?
Discover more at: frontiersofknowledgeawards-fbbva.es/galardonados/joel-habener
