Svetlana Mojsov, research associate professor at Rockefeller University in New York City, has been named a co-recipient of the Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biology and Biomedicine from the BBVA Foundation, a private foundation in Spain dedicated to supporting research and cultural initiatives. She shares the award with Daniel Drucker of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada, Joel Habener of Harvard University, and Jens Juul Holst of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
Dr. Mojsov and her co-recipients were honored for laying the groundwork for the development of drugs that are used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity, such as Ozempic and Wegovy. As a researcher with Massachusetts General Hopsital in the 1980s, Dr. Mojsov discovered the hormone glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1). When drugs that increase GLP-1 production are used, patients experience dramatic weight loss, lowering their risk of diabetes and obesity. Further research into GLP-1 has provided evidence that increased production of the hormone could also help with other medical complications, including sleep apnea, liver disease and cancer, and cognitive and addiction disorders.
Although Dr. Mojsov was a key researcher in synthesizing GLP-1, she was left off the official 1996 patent that identified the peptide as a method of increasing the release of insulin. Dr. Habener was listed as the sole-creator. It took 10 years and legal action before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued the corrections to four patents established by Massachusetts General Hospital.
A native of Macedonia, Dr. Mojsov earned her undergraduate degree in physical chemistry from Belgrade University. She received her Ph.D. from Rockefeller University, where she was her lab’s first woman graduate student. After graduating, she stayed with her lab as a postdoctoral researcher for five years. She ultimately returned to the university, where she has served as a research associate professor for the past three decades.