Tag Archives: Jeffrey M. Friedman
Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Jeffrey Friedman elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Tessier-Lavigne, Rockefeller president and head of the Laboratory of Brain Development, and Jeffrey M. Friedman head of the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics, were elected to the honorary society and independent policy research center along with 198 other leaders in science, art, academia and the civic, corporate and philanthropic arenas. The current membership includes some 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners, and 23 other Rockefeller University faculty members are fellows.
Jeffrey M. Friedman awarded 11th IPSEN Endocrine Regulation Prize
Friedman is being recognized for his groundbreaking discovery of leptin, a hormone that regulates food intake and energy expenditure. His observations provided scientists with a new target for treating obesity and other metabolic diseases.
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Jeffrey M. Friedman receives Albert Lasker Award for discovery of leptin
This year’s Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, the most prestigious American prize in science, honors Rockefeller University’s Jeffrey M. Friedman, who discovered leptin, a hormone that regulates food intake and body weight. More »
Obesity researcher wins Keio Medical Science Prize
Jeffery Friedman shares the 14th Keio Medical Science Prize, awarded annually to researchers for outstanding achievements in the fields of life sciences and medicine, for the “discovery of leptin and the study of its physiological functions.” More »
Jeffrey Friedman receives Shaw Prize for discovery of leptin
Jeffrey Friedman, Marilyn M. Simpson Professor and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics at Rockefeller, received the 2009 Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine. He shares the $1 million award, known as the Nobel Prize of the East, with the Jackson Laboratory’s Douglas L. Coleman for their work leading to the discovery of leptin, a hormone that regulates food intake and body weight. More »
Tags: Jeffrey M. Friedman
Newly identified cells make fat
By using a mouse that lacks fat cells and observing the growth of fat after injections of different kinds of immature cells, Rockefeller University scientists have discovered an important fat precursor cell that may in time explain how changes in the numbers of fat cells might increase and lead to obesity. The scientists’ finding could also have implications for understanding how fat cells affect conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. More »
Tags: adipocyte, Jeffrey M. Friedman, Obesity
Obesity researcher awarded Danone nutrition prize
The sixth Danone Institute International Prize for Nutrition, an award that honors innovative nutritional research, was given to Rockefeller University’s Jeffrey Friedman today at the European Nutrition Conference in Paris. More »
Tags: Danone, Jeffrey M. Friedman
Jeffrey Friedman to receive Kovalenko Medal
The National Academy of Sciences announced today that Rockefeller University scientist Jeffrey M. Friedman will receive the National Academy of Sciences’ Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko Medal — a medal and prize of $25,000 awarded every three years for important contributions to the medical sciences. More »
Genetic data from an island population proves to be useful tool in understanding disease
With fewer than 4,000 residents, the genetically isolated Micronesian island of Kosrae, in the West Pacific, provides an ideal population in which to research heritability of disease. Now this data is beginning to yield intriguing results about the genetic basis of complex disease. More »
Tags: Jeffrey M. Friedman, population
Jeffrey Friedman elected to Institute of Medicine
Rockefeller University’s Jeffrey M. Friedman, a molecular geneticist whose discovery of the hormone leptin and its role in regulating body weight has changed our understanding of the causes of human obesity, was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, it was announced today. More »
Jeffrey Friedman, discoverer of leptin, receives Gairdner, Passano awards
Rockefeller University’s Jeffrey M. Friedman, M.D., Ph.D., a molecular geneticist whose discovery of the hormone leptin and its role in regulating body weight has changed our understanding of the causes of human obesity, has received two prestigious awards for this work: the Gairdner Foundation International Award and the Passano Foundation Award. More »
Through population screening on the island of Kosrae, Rockefeller scientists discover a mutant gene that controls dietary cholesterol absorption
Using DNA from 1,000 inhabitants of the Micronesian island of Kosrae, Rockefeller University scientists have discovered a mutant gene that affects an individual’s absorption of dietary cholesterol. The findings are reported in the Journal of Lipid Research. The researchers hope their discovery will help tease apart the tangle of genes that control cholesterol absorption, one of the factors that contributes to high blood cholesterol levels, which are a major risk factor for heart attacks. More »
Tags: cholesterol, Jeffrey M. Friedman
Fat hormone leptin alters brain architecture and activity, which in turn shapes feeding behavior
Scientists at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and The Rockefeller University in collaboration with investigators at Yale University have found that leptin – a hormone found in fat tissue and critical to regulating weight – affects both the architecture and function of neural circuits in the brain. The hormone alters the wiring by controlling synapses – the inputs and outputs to neurons that, in this case, regulate feeding behavior. More »
Tags: Jeffrey M. Friedman
“Gene therapy” in worms identifies protein that plays role in controlling water balance, sense of touch in live animals
Using “knockout” mice and mutant roundworms, researchers at The Rockefeller University and the University of California, San Francisco, have identified a protein that helps control water balance in the body and underlies the sensation of touch — functions basic to life that have long eluded explanation. More »
Tags: gene therapy, Jeffrey M. Friedman, TRPV4
Obesity not a personal failing, says leptin discoverer Jeffrey Friedman, but a battle against biology
Leptin discoverer Jeffrey M. Friedman, M.D., Ph.D., argues in a “Viewpoint” article in a special obesity issue of the journal Science published Feb. 7 that obesity cannot be easily explained as simply a breakdown in willpower. Genes and environment, explains the Rockefeller University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher, both play important roles in determining a person’s body weight. More »
Tags: Jeffrey M. Friedman, Obesity
Researchers discover molecular “switch” that tells body to store or burn fat
An enzyme called SCD-1 plays a crucial role —through the hormone leptin —in signaling the body to either store fat or burn it, report a team of scientists in the July 12 issue of the journal Science. More »
Tags: Jeffrey M. Friedman, SCD-1
Friedman, Kuriyan and Steinman elected to National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences announced the election of 72 new members this morning. Among these are three members of The Rockefeller University faculty. More »
Researchers Light the Path of Brain’s Feeding Circuit in Mice
A novel technique that uses a virus tagged with a green-glowing jellyfish protein has enabled scientists to visualize the feeding circuit in mice. The method may be useful in studies of other complex circuits in the brain. The findings are reported in the March 30 issue of Science by a team of researchers from The Rockefeller University, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Princeton University and the University of California at San Diego. More »
Researchers Identify Molecule That Senses Osmotic Pressure in Vertebrates
Researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Rockefeller University have identified a molecule in vertebrates that senses osmotic pressure-the measure of saltiness essential for living cells-and may provide an inroad into understanding inner ear function and the sense of touch. More »
Chipping Away at Leptin’s Effects
Rockefeller researchers are using genechip technology, a powerful tool for analyzing the expression patterns of thousands of genes at a time. Researchers in the Friedman lab have identified a number of genes that are specifically regulated by the hormone leptin. More »
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