TIME 100 HEALTH-PIONEERS
Time|May 13, 2024
In the wake of the pandemic, a new era emerges-marked by fresh discoveries, novel treatments, and global victories over disease. These are the most influential people in health in 2024
Alice Park
TIME 100 HEALTH-PIONEERS

The GLP-1 scientists, Akiko Iwasaki, Michael J. Fox, Hadiza Galadanci, Vivek Murthy +92 more

Jens Juul Holst, Joel Habener, Svetlana Mojsov, and Dan Drucker PAVING THE WAY FOR WEIGHT-LOSS DRUGS

If [GLP-1 drugs] show benefit for even half of these conditions, then that will be a tremendous win for people struggling with them.' -DAN DRUCKER

Newly powerful weight-loss drugs became the biggest story in health in the past year-and Jens Juul Holst, Joel Habener, Svetlana Mojsov, and Dan Drucker played pivotal roles in making those medications possible. The scientists conducted the early work, beginning in the 1970s, on glucagon-like peptides, or GLPs, that first transformed the treatment of diabetes and now that of obesity.

As with many groundbreaking medical developments, it was a group effort. Holst, at the University of Copenhagen, noticed that after intestinal surgery, patients' levels of insulin soared while their blood-sugar levels dropped; he attributed the changes to several gut-related hormones, including glucagon, which is made in the pancreas. Around the same time, an ocean and a continent away in Boston, Habener and Drucker worked with animals in the lab at Massachusetts General Hospital and identified new types of glucagon hormones that they called GLP-1 and GLP-2. Mojsov, a chemist two floors away, also independently identified the active portion of GLP-1, which is mimicked in the new weight-loss drugs as the key compound in Ozempic and Wegovy (made by Novo Nordisk) and one of two main compounds in Mounjaro and Zepbound (made by Eli Lilly). Mojsov produced large amounts of the peptide and developed antibodies to stick to them. The trio eventually collaborated on critical scientific papers that described the active part of GLP-1 in the guts of rats, and documented that increasing GLP-1 levels corresponded to increasing levels of insulin.

Esta historia es de la edición May 13, 2024 de Time.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

Esta historia es de la edición May 13, 2024 de Time.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

MÁS HISTORIAS DE TIMEVer todo
How Trump Won
Time

How Trump Won

THE FORMER PRESIDENT'S RE-ELECTION IS THE NEXT STEP IN A POLITICAL CAREER UNLIKE ANY OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY

time-read
10+ minutos  |
November 25, 2024
Zak Brown The McLaren Racing CEO on Formula One in the U.S., his team's chase for a championship, and the future propulsion of the automobile
Time

Zak Brown The McLaren Racing CEO on Formula One in the U.S., his team's chase for a championship, and the future propulsion of the automobile

The McLaren F1 team is in the running for its first Formula One constructors' championship since 1998. What's that like? I'm kind of living on the edge of my seat. That's why sport is always going to be one of the most engaging forms of entertainment for people around the world.

time-read
2 minutos  |
November 25, 2024
Say Nothing speaks volumes
Time

Say Nothing speaks volumes

IN 1972, AT THE BLOODY HEIGHT OF the Troubles, home invaders abducted a widowed mother of 10 named Jean McConville from her Belfast apartment. Her children never saw her alive again.

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 25, 2024
Portrait of the artist in his ninth decade
Time

Portrait of the artist in his ninth decade

AS A CURATOR AT THE PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART, Eleanor Nairne is very particular about how an artwork should be placed. \"I always say that you have to ask the work if it's sat comfortably,\" she says.

time-read
5 minutos  |
November 25, 2024
No rest for the songs of Wicked
Time

No rest for the songs of Wicked

THE WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST HAS BEEN A FIXTURE in American culture for nearly 125 years. After coming to life in 1900 with L. Frank Baum's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, she rose to prominence onscreen in 1939, portrayed by Margaret Hamilton as a sinister old lady intent on ruining an innocent girl's wish to go home.

time-read
5 minutos  |
November 25, 2024
SENTIMENTAL VALUE
Time

SENTIMENTAL VALUE

With Here, Robert Zemeckis stays true to his unlikely blend of new technologies and old-fashioned storytelling

time-read
6 minutos  |
November 25, 2024
TIME 100 CLIMATE
Time

TIME 100 CLIMATE

These are the 100 most influential leaders driving business climate action

time-read
10 minutos  |
November 25, 2024
BABY TALK
Time

BABY TALK

UNSURE ABOUT HAVING KIDS? THERAPIST MERLE BOMBARDIERI CAN HELP YOU FIGURE IT OUT

time-read
10 minutos  |
November 25, 2024
The many horrors of the Pelicot rape trial
Time

The many horrors of the Pelicot rape trial

THE TRIAL OF DOMINIQUE PELICOT, THE MAN IN THE South of France who pleaded guilty in September to charges of secretly drugging his wife of 50 years, Gisele, and, over the course of about a decade, filming dozens of men as they had sex with her while she was sedated, would have been disturbing enough just as the story of an epically vile husband.

time-read
5 minutos  |
November 25, 2024
Health Matters
Time

Health Matters

COVID-19 MAY NOT BE A PUBLIChealth emergency anymore, but you still need your yearly shot. In fact, it seems to peak about twice a year: once during the traditional respiratory-disease season in the fall and winter, and once during summer.

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 25, 2024