Dear Members of the HMS and HSDM Community:

I am delighted to share that HMS physician-scientist Joel Habener has been named co-recipient of the 2024 Lasker–DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award. Joel is being honored for his discovery of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), a molecule that became the basis for GLP-1 therapies that have revolutionized the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity.

Joel shares the prize with biochemist Svetlana Mojsov, a research associate professor at The Rockefeller University, and Danish scientist Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, of Novo Nordisk.

A professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Laboratory of Molecular Endocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital, Joel has dedicated much of his career to understanding the complex interplay between hormones and signaling pathways involved in sugar metabolism. His early work focused on several key hormones, including glucagon, which prompts the liver to release glucose when the body needs sugar as fuel.

In the 1970s, Joel discovered that the gene for glucagon also encodes glucagon-like peptide-1 (or GLP-1), a molecule that resembles glucagon but stimulates insulin secretion. He went on to elucidate the biologic and physiologic functions of GLP-1.

Independently, Mojsov identified and purified the physiologically active form of GLP-1, further enabling researchers to study the effects of this molecule in the body.

Knudsen transformed the biologic insights from the lab into clinical therapies and tweaked the structure of GLP-1 in a manner that allowed it to remain in the body much longer, paving the way for GLP-1 treatments of type 2 diabetes and obesity.

Taken together, their discoveries have ushered in a new era of managing obesity, a condition that can trigger a cascade of other diseases, including cardiovascular illness, stroke, and certain forms of cancer.

As an educator, Joel has been tremendously influential; his former trainees are now distinguished leaders in clinical medicine, academic administration, industry, and basic science. He is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the 2021 Canada Gairdner International Award and the 2020 Warren Alpert Foundation Prize for his research on glucagon-like peptides.

Despite his many honors and the generations of scientific talent he has mentored, Joel remains humble and reserved. He is a quiet leader deserving of the highest admiration.

Please join me in offering our enthusiastic congratulations to Joel for his unwavering commitment to research that improves human health and well-being, and for receiving one of the most prestigious awards in biomedical science.

Sincerely,

George Q. Daley
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
Harvard University