HMS Professor Wins Prestigious Lasker-DeBakey Award for Work on GLP-1

Harvard Medical School professor Joel F. Habener won the 2024 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for his work on the glucagon-like peptide-1, the hormone targeted by diabetes drugs like Ozempic, the Lasker Foundation announced last Thursday.

Habener was honored alongside Rockefeller University researcher Svetlana Mojsov and Novo Nordisk scientist Lotte Bjerre Knudsen for their discovery and development of GLP-1 pharmaceuticals, which have revolutionized treatments for obesity and type 2 diabetes, including the creation and FDA approval of Ozempic and Wegovy.

The Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award — one of four yearly awards given by the Lasker Foundation — honors a major advancement that impacts the lives of thousands of people.

Harvard Medical School Dean George Q. Daley ’82 praised Habener and his work in a press release last week.

“The work of these researchers has reshaped the future for millions with obesity and type 2 diabetes,” Daley said.

Habener first found the gene that codes for both glucagon — a protein that increases blood sugar concentrations — and GLP-1 in his lab at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1982. Alongside others, he later determined that gut cells release GLP-1 into the bloodstream after food is consumed, which subsequently helps the release of insulin from pancreatic beta cells.

Mojsov separately identified and then purified GLP-1 in its physiologically active state. In the 1990s, Knudsen — Novo Nordisk head of GLP-1 therapeutics — and her team built upon Habener and Mojsov’s work to develop treatments that fight diabetes and obesity. Scientists at Novo Nordisk then utilized Knudsen’s research to develop semaglutide, which was eventually released as Ozempic and Wegovy.

In an emailed statement to The Crimson, Habener wrote that it was “gratifying” to “see that these contributions are helping to alleviate diabetes and obesity-associated co-morbidities in people throughout the world.”

Habener added that in addition to lowering blood sugar levels and promoting weight loss, GLP-1 receptor antagonists can have a slew of other health benefits, including reducing the risk of heart attacks, stroke, and death in non-diabetic patients with cardiovascular disease. The drugs could also be effective in treating inflammatory disorders, addictions, and depression.

“It seems that GLP-1 might become a ‘Miracle Drug,’” Habener wrote.

—Staff writer Veronica H. Paulus can be reached at veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @VeronicaHPaulus.