Outstanding Innovation Award
Matthias Tschöp, MD
It was with great pleasure that I nominated physician-scientist Matthias Tschöp, MD, for the 2017 Outstanding Innovation Award of the Endocrine Society.
Professor Tschöp, who currently serves as director of the Helmholtz Diabetes Center and Chair of Metabolic Diseases at the Technische Universität München, Germany, discovered several leading classes of novel drug candidates in the field of diabetes, obesity, and metabolic diseases. His innovative and reproducible basic science work has led to development of multiple distinct novel investigational therapeutic agents now being assessed in clinical trials.
As a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Tschöp reported on the orexigenic, adipogenic, and metabolic effects of ghrelin (Nature, 2000, >3500 citations). This groundbreaking discovery added a fundamental pathway to the model of body weight and glucose control, and established a novel set of drug targets (Nature Medicine, 2009; Science, 2010). He also was the first to report that ghrelin levels are regulated by both food intake and body weight (Diabetes, 2001; J Endocrinol Invest, 2001). He went on to collaborate with the chemist Richard DiMarchi to co-discover a paradigm shifting series of gut hormone-derived unimolecular poly-agonists that target several neuroendocrine receptors, reduce body weight and improve glucose tolerance with unprecedented efficacy (Nature Chemical Biology, 2009; Science Translational Medicine, 2013, Nature Medicine, 2015).
Dr. Tschöp’s innovative breakthroughs also encompass novel strategies for tissue-specific delivery of small molecules using peptide shuttles thereby more efficiently targeting pathological processes while minimizing toxic effects (Nature Medicine, 2012; Cell, 2016). In addition to more than 300 peer-reviewed publications, and numerous scientific awards (including Outstanding Scientific Achievement Awards of The Obesity Society 2009 and the American Diabetes Society 2011), Dr. Tschöp is an excellent collaborative colleague.
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