Foundational contributions of Svetlana Mojsov to the GLP-1 field

Biochemist Svetlana Mojsov, both as a graduate student at The Rockefeller University under the mentorship of Bruce Merrifield during the 1970s, and as an independent investigator at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) during the 1980s, devised effective and robust methods for the chemical synthesis of the peptide hormones glucagon and glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1), along with numerous analogues of these key biomolecules. Working separately from MGH’s powerhouse endocrine research laboratory, Mojsov developed a tool-kit of reliable assays that were indispensable to later in vitro and in vivo collaborative studies that established profound insulinotropic effects of this peptide family, findings that were subsequently harnessed clinically with blockbuster drugs directed at often-serious endocrine conditions such as type 2 diabetes and obesity. Significantly, Mojsov was the first to recognize the critical cleavage sites in preproglucagon that give rise to the biologically active species, a truncated form known as GLP-1 (7–37), and carried out the key experiments that proved her hypothesis. Despite being the first author on critical formative publications for the field, and being acknowledged, along with Joel Habener, as one of two co-inventors on the controlling United States patents, Mojsov’s foundational contributions were initially overlooked when GLP-1 biochemistry began to be the subject of major scientific prizes. Fortunately, Mojsov’s work has, within the past year, been better appreciated and deservedly lauded.