Svetlana Mojsov | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| Alma mater | Rockefeller University |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Massachusetts General Hospital Rockefeller University |
| Thesis | Studies on solid-phase peptide synthesis: the synthesis of glucagon (1978) |
Svetlana Mojsov is a Serbian chemist and Research Associate Professor at Rockefeller University. Her research considers peptide synthesis. She discovered the glucagon-like peptide-1 and uncovered its role in glucose metabolism and the secretion of insulin. Her breakthroughs were transformed by Novo Nordisk into therapeutic agents against diabetes and obesity.
Mojsov was born in Yugoslavia. She joined the graduate programme at the Rockefeller University in 1972, where she worked alongside Robert Bruce Merrifield on the synthesis of peptides.[1] Specifically, Mojsov focussed on the synthesis of glucagon, which is released by the pancreas. At the time it was proposed that glucagon might help to treat Type 2 diabetes.
In the 1980s moved to the Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was made head of a peptide synthesis facility.[1] She arrived at MGH shortly after Habener had cloned proglucagon by studying anglerfish found in Boston Harbor. Mojsov she worked on the identification of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), a hormone generated by the gut that triggers the release of insulin. The amino acid sequence of GLP-1 was similar to a gastric inhibitory peptide, an incretin. To try and identify whether a specific fragment of GLP-q was an incretin, Mojsov created an incretin-antibody and developed ways to track its present. Specifically, Mojsov identified that a stretch of 31 amino acids in the GLP-1 was an incretin.[2][3] Together with Daniel J. Drucker and Joel Habener, Mojsov showed that small quantities of lab-synthesised GLP-1 could trigger insulin.[4][5][6]
In the 1990s Mojsov returned to New York City, where she returned to Rockefeller University and the laboratory of Ralph M. Steinman. In 1992 the group at Massachusetts General Hospital tested the GLP-1 in humans.[7] Drugs that emulate the action of GLP1 have been developed into treatments for obesity and diabetes by Novo Nordisk.[1][8] Eventually, the GLP-1 derivatives Mojsov synthesised were patented as peptides able to prompt the release of insulin, but with Habener as the sole-creator. Mojsov fought to have her name included in the patent.[1]
At graduate school Mojsov met her husband, Nussenzweig.[1]