Joel Habener, whose research underpinned the development of drugs that have revolutionized the treatment of obesity, has passed away at the age of 88.
In the 1970s, early in his career as an endocrinologist, Habener became interested in hormones besides insulin that control levels of glucose in the blood. He focused on another pancreatic hormone called glucagon that was known to boost blood sugar concentrations.
Habener decided to utilize the new tools of molecular biology and isolate the gene that encodes glucagon. NIH guidelines on recombinant DNA research at the time restricted manipulation of mammalian genes, so he pivoted to the anglerfish, which offered an advantage, as it contains a special organ that manufactures generous amounts of glucagon.
Scientists knew that active peptide hormones are liberated from larger proteins by enzymes that snip in specific places. In 1982, Habener reported that the fish glucagon gene encodes a predicted precursor protein that contains glucagon and, in addition, a second peptide that resembles glucagon. The following year, the second molecule was identified as glucagon-like peptide 1 or GLP-1.
Once GLP-1 was identified, collaborators such as Svetlana Mojsov developed reagents and methods that provided scientists with means to draw unambiguous conclusions about GLP-1 biology, including the sequence of the molecule’s active sites and how it might be detected in the intestines. This foundational research enabled other scientists, including Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, to develop GLP-1-based pharmaceuticals which promise to dramatically enhance health.
In 2024, Habener was honored (along with Mojsov and Knudsen) with a 2024 Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for the discovery and development of GLP-1-based drugs that have revolutionized the treatment of obesity.
