A team led by Professor Lora Heisler of the University of Aberdeen’s Rowett Institute and Professor Stefan Trapp at UCL – funded by the Medical Research Council – will spend three years identifying where semaglutide acts in the brain to influence specific aspects of food intake such as meal size, healthier food choices, delaying digestion and dampening the “feel-good” food effect, and also where it acts to produce the unpleasant nausea side effects.
Speaking about the new project, Professor Heisler said: “There is huge interest in how the brain targets of semaglutide (Wegovy) and similar drugs such as tirzepatide (Mounjaro) could be switched on in a slightly different or more targeted way. Drugs that can do this could work better, have effects that last longer and produce specific therapeutic obesity treatment benefits without the nausea side effect.
“This research could also lead to new drugs that are produced as pills instead of injectables, thereby reducing costs and increasing availability.
“We can only now do these types of studies because of the latest technological advances, and we expect our results will provide the blueprint to develop even better obesity medications in the future.”
Find out more: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/rowett/news-events/news/22963/