BIO
Svetlana Mojsov (Skopje, North Macedonia, 1947), now an American national, graduated with a BS in Physical Chemistry from the University of Belgrade (Serbia) in 1971, then went on to complete a PhD in Biochemistry seven years later at The Rockefeller University (New York). After doing postdoctoral research at the same center, in 1983 she took up a position in the Endocrine Unit and as an Assistant in Biochemistry at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she also headed the Howard Hughes Medical Institute peptide synthesis facility, at the same time working as an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. In 1990 she returned to The Rockefeller University, where he has held the position of Research Associate Professor since 2002. Mojsov’s research has resulted in five patents, four of which she obtained after Massachusetts General Hospital amended an initial registration that failed to recognize her contribution.
CONTRIBUTION
In 1972, Svetlana Mojsov joined Rockefeller University to pursue her PhD and managed to apply a new synthesis method – solid phase synthesis – to a hormone called glucagon. This achievement spurred a growing interest in understanding this family of hormones, known as glucagon-like peptides, and on moving to Massachusetts General Hospital, Mojsov was able to launch an independent research program to study them. She successfully identified and synthesized one such form, the GLP-1 peptide, showing that it was segregated in the pancreas of rats. Later on, in collaboration with Joel Habener, she observed that GLP-1 stimulated insulin production in these animals, opening the door to therapeutic potential in type 2 diabetes.
Drugs based on GLP-1 have been game-changing for the treatment of both diabetes and obesity. Various diabetes drugs were already in use, but the fact that GLP-1 only stimulates insulin production when blood sugar levels are high means that the new treatments carry a much lower risk of these levels dropping below the safe limit.
In addition, most previous treatments caused weight gain in diabetes patients, diminishing their overall effectiveness. With GLP-1, this side effect not only disappears, but the drug actually helps patients lose weight, providing a two-way improvement in the disease prognosis.
