President's Lecture 2020 - Jeffrey M. Friedman

Leptin and the Biological Basis of Obesity
Friday 20 November, 14:30 - 15:45 GMT
The Physiological Society’s President’s Lecture 2020 was delivered by Jeffrey M. Friedman, who isolated leptin, a hormone that regulates food intake and body weight in animals and humans. The President’s Lecture was open to both members and non-members of The Society.
Friedman’s current research laboratory is working to improve the understanding of the genetic basis of obesity in humans and how the brain regulates leptin’s influence on appetite and metabolism.
Leptin is an adipose tissue hormone that maintains homeostatic control of adipose tissue mass. This endocrine system thus serves a critical evolutionary function by protecting individuals from the risks associated with being too thin (starvation) or too obese (predation). Mutations in leptin or its receptor cause massive obesity in mice and humans, and leptin can effectively treat obesity in leptin deficient patients. The identification of leptin has thus provided a framework for studying the regulation of feeding behavior and the pathogenesis of obesity.
While most obese patients have high endogenous levels of leptin indicating that they are leptin resistant, obese patients with low endogenous levels show robust weight loss with leptin treatment. Leptin also links changes in nutrition to adaptive responses in other physiologic systems with effects on insulin sensitivity, fertility, immune function and neuroendocrine function (among others). Leptin is an approved treatment for generalised lipodystrophy, a condition associated with severe diabetes, and has also shown promise for the treatment of other types of diabetes and for hypothalamic amenorrhea, an infertility syndrome in females. Studies of leptin gene regulation also suggest that leptin should be an effective treatment for the subset of obese patients with low endogenous levels of the hormone.
The identification of leptin has also advanced our understanding of the neural mechanisms that control feeding. Current research focuses on the function of specific neural populations in the hypothalamus and other brain regions to control feeding behavior and energy balance. The role of these neural populations is being evaluated by identifying molecular markers for specific subpopulations, and evaluating the effect of modulating their activity. In other studies, we are studying the transcriptional mechanisms that regulate leptin gene expression as well as the leptin regulated neural circuits that regulate metabolism.
More about Jeffrey M. Friedman:
After completing medical school and internal medicine training, Jeffrey M. Friedman entered The Rockefeller University’s graduate program and was awarded a PhD in 1986 prior to joining the Rockefeller faculty. Friedman is currently a professor at The Rockefeller University, USA and an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Friedman recently received the 2019 Breakthrough Prize and 2019 Wolf Prize. He also shared the 2010 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research with Douglas Coleman for the discovery of leptin. He was elected to the National Academy of Science (2001) from which he received the Kovalenko Medal. He has received the Gairdner International Award (2005), Keio Medical Science Prize (2009), Shaw Prize (2009), BBVA Prize (2012) and an honorary degree from Yale University (2015), among others. He is a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (2018) and a member of National Academy of Sciences (USA).

[@kuggsbuggs]

This was very interesting - thank you for uploading !

[@LaidBackAssassin]

Great presentation, thanks!