Pedro Miguel Echenique chairs the jury for the 2024 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research

Five global leaders in the field of endocrinology awarded the Princess of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research

Daniel J. Drucker, Jeffrey M. Friedman, Joel F. Habener, Jens Juul Holst and Svetlana Mojsov

Daniel J. Drucker, physician, (Canada); Jeffrey M. Friedman, molecular biologist, (USA); Joel F. Habener, endocrinologist, (USA); Jens Juul Holst, chemist, (Denmark); and Svetlana Mojsov, chemist, (Macedonia and USA) have been awarded the 2024 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, the jury announced today.

The Jury for this Award – convened by the Princess of Asturias Foundation – was chaired by Pedro Miguel Echenique Landiríbar and comprised Jesús del Álamo, Alberto Aparici Benages, Juan Luis Arsuaga Ferreras, Juan Ignacio Cirac Sasturáin, Avelino Corma Canós, Elena García Armada, Bernardo Hernández González, Jerónimo López Martínez, Amador Menéndez Velázquez, Ginés Morata Pérez, Peregrina Quintela Estévez, Inés Rodríguez Hidalgo, María Teresa Telleria Jorge, María Paz Zorzano Mier and Cristina Garmendia Mendizábal (secretary).

They were nominated by Philip Felgner, winner of the 2021 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research.

In recent years, there have been major breakthroughs in the treatment of type 2 diabetes, with the emergence of drugs whose active ingredient is semaglutide, a peptide similar to the hormone glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), which plays a counterbalancing role to insulin in blood sugar regulation. When blood sugar levels drop, glucagon induces the liver to release glucose, and when they rise, more insulin is produced, which reduces the excess. Semaglutide also causes a marked reduction in appetite, which has made Ozempic – one of the drugs produced with this active ingredient – such a success. The journal Science named these anti-obesity drugs as the biggest scientific breakthrough of 2023. Drucker, Habener, Holst and Mojsov share the credit for having pioneered and developed this research since the 1970s. In their respective laboratories, they studied the hormones involved in the process which regulate digestive metabolism, like somatostatin, which inhibits the production of glucagon and insulin, and variants of glucagon, called GLP-1 and GLP-2. They found that this homeostasic system could be an effective therapeutic target for type 2 diabetes. Semaglutide (and other similar molecules) functions as a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist, thereby inhibiting GLP-1 production, reducing blood sugar levels and stimulating the growth of pancreatic beta cells, which are responsible for insulin production and release. It has also been shown to protect against strokes in adults with obesity, an indication recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In turn, in 1994, Friedman discovered another hormone, leptin, which is produced in fat cells or adipocytes and acts on the region of the brain that controls appetite. It is a balanced system: the more fat there is, the more leptin is produced, which decreases appetite, reducing body fat and therefore leptin production. In obese people this mechanism is imbalanced. He also studied genetic predisposition to obesity.

According to its Regulations, the Princess of Asturias Awards are aimed at rewarding “the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanitarian work carried out at an international level by individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions”. In accordance with these principles, the Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research is awarded for “work aimed at fostering and improving research, discovery and/or invention in astronomy and astrophysics, medical sciences, technological sciences, earth and space sciences, life sciences, physics, mathematics and chemistry, as well as the disciplines within each of these fields and their related techniques”.

A total of 48 nominees of 17 nationalities competed for this year’s Scientific and Technical Research Award.

This was the seventh of the eight Princess of Asturias Awards to be presented in this, its 44th year. Before that, the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts had been awarded to the singer and composer Joan Manuel Serrat; the Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities to the French-Iranian cartoonist, film director and painter Marjane Satrapi; the Princess of Asturias Award for Sports to the badminton player Carolina Marín; the Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences to the Canadian writer, academic and ex-politician Michael Ignatieff; the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature to the Romanian poet Ana Blandiana; and the Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation to the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI). The Princess of Asturias Award for Concord will be presented next week.

As is customary, the Princess of Asturias Awards ceremony will be held in October in a formal event presided over by Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain, accompanied by Their Royal Highnesses the Princess of Asturias and the Infanta Sofia.

Each recipient of a Princess of Asturias Award is presented with a sculpture by Joan Miró – a representative symbol of the award -, a diploma, a pin and a cash prize of fifty thousand euros.