Insulin is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets; it is considered to be the main anabolic hormone of the body. It regulates the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats and protein by promoting the absorption of glucose from the blood into liver, fat and skeletal muscle cells. In these tissues the absorbed glucose is converted into either glycogen via glycogenesis or fats (triglycerides) via lipogenesis, or, in the case of the liver, into both. Glucose production and secretion by the liver is strongly inhibited by high concentrations of insulin in the blood. Circulating insulin also affects the synthesis of proteins in a wide variety of tissues. It is therefore an anabolic hormone, promoting the conversion of small molecules in the blood into large molecules inside the cells. Low insulin levels in the blood have the opposite effect by promoting widespread catabolism, especially of reserve body fat.
John James Rickard Macleod was a British biochemist and physiologist. He devoted his career to diverse topics in physiology and biochemistry, but was chiefly interested in carbohydrate metabolism. He is noted for his role in the discovery and isolation of insulin during his tenure as a lecturer at the University of Toronto, for which he and Frederick Banting received the 1923 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine. Awarding the prize to Macleod was controversial at the time, because according to Banting's version of events, Macleod's role in the discovery was negligible. It was not until decades after the events that an independent review acknowledged a far greater role than was attributed to him at first.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's 1895 will, are awarded "to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind". Nobel Prizes are awarded in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace.
Insulin resistance (IR) is a pathological condition in which cells fail to respond normally to the hormone insulin.
The Karolinska Institute is a research-led medical university in Solna within the Stockholm urban area of Sweden. The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The assembly consists of fifty professors from various medical disciplines at the university. The current rector of Karolinska Institute is Ole Petter Ottersen, who took office in August 2017. The Karolinska Institute is consistently ranked amongst the world's best medical schools, ranking 6th worldwide for medicine in 2021.
Günter Blobel was a Silesian German and American biologist and 1999 Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology for the discovery that proteins have intrinsic signals that govern their transport and localization in the cell.
Bernardo Alberto Houssay was an Argentine physiologist who, in 1947, was a co-recipient of a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the role played by pituitary hormones in regulating the amount of blood sugar (glucose) in animals. He was the first Argentine Nobel laureate in the sciences. He shared the prize with Carl Ferdinand Cori and Gerty Cori, who won for their discoveries regarding the role of glucose in carbohydrate metabolism).
Christian René Marie Joseph, Viscount de Duve was a Nobel Prize-winning Belgian cytologist and biochemist. He made serendipitous discoveries of two cell organelles, peroxisome and lysosome, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1974 with Albert Claude and George E. Palade. In addition to peroxisome and lysosome, he invented scientific names such as autophagy, endocytosis, and exocytosis in a single occasion.
A branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) is an amino acid having an aliphatic side-chain with a branch. Among the proteinogenic amino acids, there are three BCAAs: leucine, isoleucine, and valine. Non-proteinogenic BCAAs include 2-aminoisobutyric acid.
Gustav Georg Embden was a German physiological chemist.
Pyruvate dehydrogenase lipoamide kinase isozyme 4, mitochondrial is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the PDK4 gene. It codes for an isozyme of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase.
Jan-Åke Gustafsson is a Swedish scientist and professor in Biology, Biochemistry and Medical Nutrition. When he decided to move to Houston, Texas, USA, in 2008, the State of Texas decided to give a major US $ 5.5 million research grant to the University of Houston, enabling the establishment of the Center of Nuclear Receptors and Cell Signaling under the leadership of Jan-Åke Gustafsson. The grant was announced at a February 5, 2009, press conference by Rick Perry, Governor of Texas and running for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 2012 presidential election.
Karen Teff is a biologist and geneticist. She received her education in Canada and has since been working in the United States. Teff has spent most of her career studying the effects of diabetes and other related diseases on humans.
Harvey F. Lodish is a molecular and cell biologist, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Founding Member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and lead author of the textbook Molecular Cell Biology. Lodish's research focuses on cell surface proteins and other important areas at the interface between molecular cell biology and medicine.
Carl Ronald Kahn is an American physician and scientist, best known for his work with insulin receptors and insulin resistance in diabetes and obesity. He is the Chief Academic Officer at Joslin Diabetes Center, the Mary K. Iacocca Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1999.
Mladen Vranic, MD, DSc, O.C., O.Ont, FRSC, FRCP(C), FCAHS, Canadian Medical Hall of Fame[CMHF] April 3, 1930 — June 18, 2019, was a Croatian-born diabetes researcher, best known for his work in tracer methodology, exercise and stress in diabetes, the metabolic effects of hormonal interactions, glucagon physiology, extrapancreatic glucagon, the role of the direct and indirect metabolic effects of insulin and the prevention of hypoglycemia. Vranic was recognized by a number of national and international awards for his research contributions, mentoring and administration including the Orders of Canada (Officer) and Ontario.
Chinmoy Sankar Dey is an Indian molecular biologist and a professor at Kusuma School of Biological Sciences of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Known for his research on insulin resistance, Dey's is a J. C. Bose National Fellow of the Department of Science and Technology and an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India and the Indian National Science Academy. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Medical Sciences in 2003. He is also a recipient of the National Bioscience Award for Career Development of the Department of Biotechnology.
Rebecca Hasson is an Associate Professor of Kinesiology at the University of Michigan. She researches the causes and consequences of pediatric obesity, how the environment impacts obesity related metabolic risk factors to inform health policies.
Barbara B. Kahn is an endocrinologist and the George Richards Minot professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is also the vice chair for research strategy in the department of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and was formerly the chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism at Beth Israel Deaconess. Her research focuses on insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
Kenneth R. Chien is an American doctor and medical scientist who has been a research director at Karolinska Institute, in Stockholm, since 2013. Chien has several papers with over 1,000 citations and a h-index of 132. His area of expertise is cardiovascular science. His research into regenerative cardiovascular medicine, specifically while director of the Cardiovascular Program of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, led to his co-founding, in 2013, of Moderna Therapeutics. In 2018, the company re-branded as Moderna, Inc. Chien is a recipient of the Walter Bradford Cannon Award of the American Physiology Society and the Pasarow Award. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh.
