Her research paved the way for blockbuster obesity drugs.
A research associate professor at The Rockefeller University, Svetlana Mojsov spent decades researching how peptides and small proteins regulate our bodies’ processes. In the 1980s, she determined how the hormone glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) triggers the pancreas to produce insulin. Her discovery opened up a new therapeutic approach to hyperglycemia, ultimately paving the way for development of the drugs Ozempic, Wegovy, and Victoza—now used by millions to manage diabetes and lose weight. A handful of male scientists received prominent laurels for these pharmaceutical breakthroughs, but Mojsov’s contribution was initially sidelined.
These drugs contain semaglutide, which induces weight loss by mimicking the effects of the natural GLP-1 hormone, produced in the gut in response to food intake. It also plays a crucial role in regulating blood sugar levels and has secondary effects on appetite and food intake, and activates receptors in the brain involving appetite regulation.
A native of the former Yugoslavia, Mojsov joined Rockefeller University in 1972 in the lab of Nobel Prize–winning biochemist Bruce Merrifield. There she worked on the synthesis of peptides, focused on glucagon. In the 1980s she moved to the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), where she was head of the peptide synthesis facility. She returned to Rockefeller in the 1990s in the laboratory of Ralph M. Steinman. In the meantime, a group at MGH forged ahead, using GLP-1 synthesized by Mojsov to test it in humans, which led to the drugs that emulate the action of GLP-1 for treatments for obesity and diabetes.
In 2021, three men received the Canada Gairdner International Award, a prestigious biomedical research prize, for work underpinning the diabetes and obesity drugs. This was the third time in four years that the same trio of scientists – Joel Havener of Massachusetts General Hospital, Daniel Drucker at the University of Toronto and Jens Juul Holst at the University of Cogenpagen – were honored for work that Mojsov had begun in the 1970s and ‘80s on the glucagon-like peptides. She later fought, successfully, to be added to crucial patents that initially omitted her as a co-inventor.
“I’ve gotten responses from so many women who have felt bias in their careers,” reflected Mojsov in a recent Rockefeller U interview. “….When I came here in 1972, I never felt that I was entering a men’s profession. But I think there’s a broader point in my experience….When a paper omits research that is relevant or that it was built upon, it has a snowball effect on future citations and research. That is, if your work is overlooked in a paper that it should be referenced in, a future paper citing that paper will also not include your work. And so on. Over time, research gets erased.”
The once humble scientist continues to speak up for credit on various awards and in articles that reference the discovery of this life-changing line of drug therapies. In 2023, she was named by Nature as one of the ten most influential people who shaped science. In April 2024, she received the 2024 Pearl Meister Greengard Prize, recognizing outstanding women scientists.
