{"id":448991,"date":"2026-02-02T11:03:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T11:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/448991\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T11:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T11:03:07","slug":"the-canadian-researcher-whose-discovery-led-to-ozempic-is-still-making-breakthroughs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/448991\/","title":{"rendered":"The Canadian researcher whose discovery led to Ozempic is still making breakthroughs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Endocrinologist Dr. Daniel Drucker at Mount Sinai in Toronto on Oct. 16, 2025.Sammy Kogan\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Inside a non-descript research tower behind Toronto\u2019s Mount Sinai Hospital, Daniel Drucker, his scientist colleagues and their lab mice are unravelling mysteries about one of the biggest medical breakthroughs of the last 30 years. <\/p>\n

They are studying the mechanisms behind the seemingly endless uses of Ozempic and its cousins in the class known as glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, or GLP-1s. <\/p>\n

These drugs have already been proven to be highly effective in controlling blood sugar and promoting weight loss. But study after study is showing that they may reduce the risks for everything from strokes and heart attacks to kidney and liver disease, sleep apnea and arthritis. What makes these drugs so powerful?<\/p>\n

The answer is not straightforward, explained Dr. Drucker, a senior investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital and a pioneer of GLP-1 science. <\/p>\n

Some of the benefits of GLP-1 medicines appear to be independent of blood-sugar control and weight loss. That means that, to take one example, patients on semaglutide, the drug sold as Ozempic for Type 2 diabetes and Wegovy for weight loss, can see liver disease improve even if they don\u2019t shed many pounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can do experiments where we can make sure that the mice we\u2019re treating have no weight loss,\u201d Dr. Drucker said. \u201cThey\u2019re getting the GLP-1 medicine and they still have these tremendous benefits in improving liver health, despite the fact that they\u2019re losing no weight.\u201d <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr. Drucker shows his GLP-1-research-related X posts at Mount Sinai.Sammy Kogan\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

How and why that happens is one of the pre-occupations of Dr. Drucker\u2019s lab, a hub for GLP-1 science in Canada where 11 postdoctoral fellows, students and associate scientists are researching topics that range from how the popular drugs affect chronic inflammation to how they stave off kidney disease. <\/p>\n

By now, Dr. Drucker\u2019s role in isolating a stable version of glucagon-like peptide-1 is familiar to Canadians who\u2019ve followed the Ozempic craze \u2013 a craze that is set to become a mania when cheaper generic versions of the medicine are released in Canada this year.<\/p>\n

The human version of GLP-1 degrades too rapidly to be repurposed as a drug, so, in the mid-1990s, Dr. Drucker decided to follow the discovery of a reptile GLP-1-related molecule by an American scientist. Dr. Drucker got his hands on a source through the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto: a Gila monster, the portly lizard native to the deserts of the southern U.S. and Mexico.<\/p>\n

Dr. Drucker analyzed the Gila monster\u2019s venom and cloned the reptile genes for GLP-1 and a peptide called exendin-4. Both act on GLP-1 receptors, and exendin-4 was more stable than the human equivalent. <\/p>\n

His discovery, published<\/a> in 1997, helped pave the way for short-acting versions of GLP-1s for diabetes, and eventually, for the long-acting blockbuster that is Ozempic.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr. Drucker holds the frozen lizard he used in his research years ago.Sammy Kogan\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

Dr. Drucker pays homage to the lizard by keeping a bottle of Gila brand tequila in his office and the body of the original monster in his lab\u2019s freezer, shrouded lovingly in plastic wrap. <\/p>\n

The reptile also made a mark on Chi Kin Wong, a postdoctoral scientist in Dr. Drucker\u2019s lab who studies how GLP-1s affect inflammation. He got a tattoo of the Gila monster on his forearm to celebrate the publication in 2022 of his study<\/a> that found semaglutide works directly on certain immune cells to tame inflammation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found that there\u2019s a population of immune cells in the gut that the drug can directly act on and reduce inflammation there,\u201d he said. \u201cI got really excited, and then I was like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ve got to commemorate it in some way.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

Later, Dr. Wong led a follow-up study<\/a> that found semaglutide acts directly on GLP-1 receptors in the brain in a way that dampens inflammation throughout the body, even though GLP-1 receptors haven\u2019t been found widely on immune cells outside the gut.<\/p>\n

The results held in short-term experiments before lab mice had time to lose weight, suggesting GLP-1s may directly reduce damaging inflammation broadly before weight loss happens. It\u2019s one of the reasons the drugs are being studied as possible treatments for inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. <\/p>\n

Opinion: The advent of powerful weight-loss drugs is promising, but not a cure for all that ails us<\/a><\/p>\n

The question of where in the body and under what conditions GLP-1 receptors are active is critical to grasping how Ozempic and its peer drugs work. It\u2019s well-understood that the drugs act directly on the cells in the pancreas and the brain, where GLP-1 receptors are plentiful, to regulate blood glucose and control appetite.<\/p>\n

But the receptors are harder for scientists to spot elsewhere. Dr. Drucker likens it to scanning a Where\u2019s Waldo book. Just because the striped-shirted character isn\u2019t visible at first glance, doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019s not there. <\/p>\n

Consider the liver, as Maria Jesus Gonzalez-Rellan has spent the past three years doing. She has been experimenting on mice to figure out why semaglutide improves liver function<\/a> in people with severe fatty liver disease, which now goes by the unwieldly name of metabolic dysfunction\u2013associated steatohepatitis, or MASH. Health Canada conditionally approved<\/a> Wegovy for MASH late last year. <\/p>\n

Dr. Gonzalez-Rellan, who moved from Spain to work in Dr. Drucker\u2019s lab, set out to answer the question with two groups of mice. One was comprised of wild-type mice, the other of mice genetically modified to block the GLP-1 receptors in their brains. <\/p>\n

She and her colleagues fed all the mice pellet diets engineered to make them obese. Once the rodents had packed on weight and developed fatty liver disease, Dr. Gonzalez-Rellan divided the groups again. Half received injections of semaglutide, the rest jabs of saline, a placebo. <\/p>\n

Opinion: Taking weight-loss drugs could mean spending less on food, but is it worth it?<\/a><\/p>\n

The wild-type mice lost weight on semaglutide and their liver function improved, according to blood tests and examinations of their liver tissue. The mice without working GLP-1 receptors in their brains did not lose weight but their liver function also improved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means that, in reality, both weight-loss dependent mechanisms and weight-loss independent mechanisms are important for liver health,\u201d Dr. Gonzalez-Rellan said. \u201cAnd this was a surprise.\u201d <\/p>\n

Her findings, which have been submitted to a scientific journal but have yet to be published, were unexpected because most of the GLP-1 research community thought the critical receptors weren\u2019t present in the liver, and that better liver health was just a side benefit of weight loss. The GLP-1 receptor isn\u2019t expressed on hepatocytes, the cells that make up 80 per cent of the liver. <\/p>\n

To investigate further, Dr. Gonzalez-Rellan\u2019s and her colleagues looked more carefully inside the liver itself. They discovered that GLP-1 receptors are present on a specialized group of endothelial cells in the liver\u2019s tiny blood vessels. <\/p>\n

When obese mice were engineered so that these cells, which play a crucial part in liver health, no longer had GLP-1 receptors, semaglutide still helped them lose weight. But many of liver health benefits disappeared.<\/p>\n

Canada will be a launching pad in the global race for generic Ozempic<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was another big surprise,\u201d Dr. Gonzalez-Rellan said. \u201cThese findings suggest that while weight loss plays a important role in the improvement, it cannot by itself account for how large the benefits are.\u201d <\/p>\n

These kinds of findings are more than academic, said Dr. Drucker, who also holds the Banting and Best Diabetes Centre-Novo Nordisk Chair in Incretin Biology at the University of Toronto. (Dr. Drucker and his lab have received funding over the years from Novo Nordisk, the Danish company that makes Ozempic and Wegovy, as well as other drug companies.) <\/p>\n

Their insights could help medical scientists and pharmaceutical companies design better Ozempic offshoots in the future, or help explain why the GLP-1 class doesn\u2019t seem to work for Parkinson\u2019s or Alzheimer\u2019s disease, as early observational studies suggested they might.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Rola Hammoud, another postdoctoral scientist in Dr. Drucker\u2019s lab, is pleased with what the current generation of drugs is already capable of. As a dietician working in the pre-Ozempic era in her native Lebanon, she often encountered patients who blamed themselves \u2013 or were blamed by others \u2013 when they couldn\u2019t lose weight. <\/p>\n

She moved to the University of Toronto for a PhD in nutritional science and is now studying the mechanism of the gut hormone abbreviated as GIP, which works with GLP-1 in tirzepatide, the drug sold as Mounjaro for diabetes and Zepbound for weight loss. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese GLP-1 drugs really just highlight how, if you can just override your biology, how much of an effect you get,\u201d Dr. Hammoud said. \u201cWeight loss and appetite control is not simply a will-power problem, but it is actually a more complex physiological process.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Endocrinologist Dr. Daniel Drucker at Mount Sinai in Toronto on Oct. 16, 2025.Sammy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49,48,84,85009],"class_list":{"0":"post-448991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-lc-gr"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}