This year's recipient Tune H Pers investigates, among other things, the role of the brain for the development of obesity, a condition that increases the risk of type 2 diabetes.

"Many people are still of the opinion that people with obesity have themselves to blame and this can affect the self-esteem of those who are overweight. We shouldn’t underestimate the importance of a healthy lifestyle, but a growing evidence base suggests that obesity is more complex than we previously thought," says Tune H Pers, associate professor of cellular biology at the University of Copenhagen.

The ability to control eating

He is convinced that we will find some of the answers to the question of what causes obesity by studying mechanisms in the brain. In a study published in Nature Metabolism, Tune H Pers and his colleagues identified several cell populations in the brainstem that control the energy balance of mice. The researchers found that four of those cell populations were associated with genetic obesity predisposition. 

"We also showed that two of those populations were of particular importance for the ability to control eating. When we activated two of those cell populations, mice with a predisposition to obesity reduced their eating. It will be important to learn more about those processes to develop new new treatments for obesity," says Tune H Pers.

The role of the brain in type 2 diabetes

The role of the brain in type 2 diabetes is a relatively unexplored area. Previous research has shown that mice with high blood sugar levels can be cured from their diabetes after an injection of a growth-stimulating protein into a region of the brain named hypothalamus. In a study published in Nature Communications, Tune H Pers showed that sustained diabetes remission is dependent on specific receptor signaling in the brain. 

"Standard antidiabetic drugs can be effective but fail to deliver adequate glycemic control to many patients. We need to learn more about the role of the brain to develop better drugs," says Tune H Pers, who leads a research group at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research at the University of Copenhagen.