Wolf Prize for Medicine to the researcher who discovered a target in the body for a drug against diabetes and obesity

The Wolf Prize for Medicine for 2023 will be awarded to Prof. Daniel Drucker from Canada who researched pancreatic hormones in the digestive system and brain. The treatments for diabetes, obesity and many other diseases are based on his research

The 2023 Wolf Prize in Medicine is awarded to Daniel Joshua Drucker, University of Toronto, Canada.

Drucker, a Canadian endocrinologist and professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and senior scientist at the Lonnenfeld-Tannenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. Prof. Drucker is known for his research on gut hormones and their use in the treatment of diabetes and other metabolic diseases.

Drucker was born and raised in Montreal. He completed medical studies at the University of Toronto (1980) and completed his residency in medicine and endocrinology at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1981, University of Toronto until 1984 and Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School (1984-87).

Prof. Drucker is known for his research and the application of scientific breakthroughs to clinical treatment. These studies have contributed significantly to the development of new treatments for type 2 diabetes and a new treatment for short bowel syndrome and have great potential for treating obesity.

Prof. Drucker studies a family of hormones produced in the pancreas, digestive system and brain, which control many aspects of metabolism. By controlling insulin secretion and blood glucose levels, these hormones regulate appetite, the absorption of nutrients from the food we eat, and the conversion of those nutrients into energy. Since increased action of these hormones may be beneficial in diabetes, obesity and inflammatory bowel disorders, analogues of these hormones have the potential to develop new drugs for diseases that affect millions of people worldwide.

The judges' arguments

The Wolf Prize is awarded to Prof. Drucker for his great contribution to the understanding of the physiology and pharmacology of glucagon-like peptides (GLPs) and their use to improve the health of patients. His discoveries about the activity of 1-GLP, 2-GLP, and 4-DPP 4-peptidase dipeptidyl enabled the development of several innovative types of drugs for the treatment of diabetes, obesity and related diseases related to obesity.

Drucker showed that 1-GLP directly catalyzes insulin secretion from pancreatic beta cells. Over the past 35 years, Drucker has led the field while clarifying the importance of 1-GLP action in controlling the proliferation and survival of pancreatic beta cells, regulating stress states in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and beta cell flexibility.

Drucker is recognized for his ongoing contributions to the characterization of many novel actions of 1-GLP in the brain, gut, endocrine and exocrine pancreas, immune system, heart, and blood vessels. He played a central role in identifying the cardiovascular mechanisms of action of the incretins, including studies on heart rate, blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, inflammatory conditions in blood vessels and the heart, thus laying the scientific foundation for the exciting results of the clinical studies that demonstrated great improvement in various cardiovascular indices.

These findings provided extensive support for the development and use of drugs from the 1-GLP family, in diabetic and obese patients. Also, these findings made it possible to identify additional diseases (such as fatty liver disease - NASH, and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's) whose treatment with 1R-GLP agonists may lead to significant improvement in patients.

Drucker also described the mechanisms linking 4-DPP activity to metabolic control. His pioneering studies described the importance of 4-DPP for control of the enteroinsular axis and established 4-DPP as a drug target that would inhibit its activity and extend the half-life of endogenous 1-GLP.