The Lasker Award: Research for a Revolution in Obesity Medicine

This year, the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award recognizes research on GLP-1 receptor biology that is revolutionizing obesity medicine. This is a revolution that is sending shockwaves through all of healthcare and indeed through society. Revolutions are uncomfortable and many people look at progress such as this with regretful nostalgia or outright fear.

So we have multiple reasons to cheer for this award. It is among the most prestigious in medicine and sometimes viewed as an indicator for research that merits a Nobel Prize. Yes, this is a big deal.

Svetlana Mojsov, Joel Habener, and Lotte Bjerre Knudsen are sharing equally in this award.

Recognition Delayed and Richly Deserved

But a dimension of this story that commands our attention is the recognition of a woman whose contributions were once dismissed falsely by characterizing her as a postdoctoral subordinate to a male colleague. It took years and a legal fight for Mass General to correct its error in omitting her as a co-inventor on a patent related to her GLP-1 discoveries.

Egos and sharp elbows come into play when people want credit for momentous discoveries. But implicit sexism needs to go. Thus, this recognition is especially gratifying to see.

Life-Changing Science

Many a PR campaign employs the language of “life-changing science,” even when it’s little more than puffery. But the biological science of GLP-1 receptors is proving to be profoundly life-changing in ways that few medical discoveries actually are.

This science, as we have noted, is sparking revolutionary changes in health systems and many other aspects of life. The magnitude of these changes will go well beyond the profound effect that better obesity care is already having for people living with obesity. Much more will come as this revolution gains momentum.

So let us all celebrate the outstanding scientific achievements of these three Lasker Award recipients. Their work is testimony to the life-changing power of science.

Click here, here, and here for more about this year’s Lasker Award. For more on the struggle for recognition of Mosjov’s work, click here and here.

Over the Town, painting by Marc Chagall / WikiArt

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September 20, 2024