Insulin is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the insulin (INS) gene. It is 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 cells of the liver, fat, and skeletal muscles. In these tissues the absorbed glucose is converted into either glycogen, via glycogenesis, or fats (triglycerides), via lipogenesis; in the liver, glucose is converted into both. Glucose production and secretion by the liver are 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 thus an anabolic hormone, promoting the conversion of small molecules in the blood into large molecules in the cells. Low insulin in the blood has the opposite effect, promoting widespread catabolism, especially of reserve body fat.
John James Rickard Macleod,, was a Scottish 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, Medicine or Physiology, Chemistry, Literature, and Peace.
Insulin resistance (IR) is a pathological condition in which cells in insulin-sensitive tissues in the body fail to respond normally to the hormone insulin or downregulate insulin receptors in response to hyperinsulinemia.
The Karolinska Institute is a research-led medical university in Solna within the Stockholm urban area of Sweden and one of the foremost medical research institutes globally. 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 vice-chancellor of Karolinska Institute is Annika Östman Wernerson, who took office in March 2023.
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. Houssay was a co-recipient of the 1947 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering the role played by pituitary hormones in regulating the amount of glucose in animals, sharing the prize with Carl Ferdinand Cori and Gerty Cori. He is the first Latin American Nobel laureate in the sciences.
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 and alloisoleucine.
Gustav Georg Embden was a German physiological chemist.
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.
Göran K. Hansson, is a Swedish physician and scientist.
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.
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 2010, 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.
The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was jointly awarded to the American physiologist David Julius and Armenian-American neuroscientist Ardem Patapoutian "for the discovery of receptors for temperature and touch." During the award ceremony on December 10, 2021, Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet member Patrik Ernfors expressed:
"The 2021 Nobel Prize laureates have explained fundamental mechanisms underpinning how we sense the world within and around us. Our temperature and touch sensors are used all the time in every day of our lives. They continuously keep us updated about our environment, and without them even the simplest of our daily tasks would be impossible to perform."
Deborah Marie Muoio is the George Barth Geller Distinguished Professor of Cardiovascular Disease at Duke University. She is known for her work on diabetes, obesity, and metabolism.
Mark Anthony Febbraio is a physiologist, academic and researcher. He is a professor and head of the Cellular and Molecular Metabolism Laboratory at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) of Monash University and a Senior Principal Research Fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).
