The world of endocrinology – and indeed the world – lost a titan at the end of 2025 in Joel Habener, MD, who passed away December 28 at the age of 88. Habener, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Laboratory of Molecular Endocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, was instrumental in the development of GLP-1-based drugs that have revolutionized the treatment of type 2 diabetes, obesity, and beyond.
Habener became interested in how the hormone glucagon fits into the puzzle of how the body regulates blood sugar levels in the 1970s. When Habener cloned the gene for glucagon, he discovered that it encodes not only glucagon itself, but also another molecule that resembles glucagon-like-peptide-1.
“Joel Habener was a pioneer in molecular endocrinology who utilized the power of molecular biology to gain unique insights into the structure and processing of prohormones,” says Daniel J. Drucker, MD, senior investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health, and a university professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine in Ontario. “Habener was widely recognized for welcoming clinical trained fellows who often gained their first real exposure to basic science in his lab. His foundational science was fundamental to the birth of the nascent field of GLP-1 biology and changed the fields of endocrinology and clinical medicine.”
Awards Season
Habener, along with colleagues Drucker; Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, DMSc, chief scientific advisor and head of the GLP-1 Centre of Excellence at Novo Nordisk; and Svetlana Mojsov, PhD, research associate professor at Rockefeller University in New York, have received many awards and accolades in recent years for their discovery of these GLP-1 therapies that led to blockbuster drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, which the FDA in December 2025 approved as a once-daily pill for weight loss (20 years after the FDA approved the first GLP-1 drug for type 2 diabetes).
“That two-decade progression cleanly captures how Joel’s career has sent ripples through health care,” George Q. Daley, MD, PhD, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard, wrote in a statement honoring Habener.
“Habener was widely recognized for welcoming clinical trained fellows who often gained their first real exposure to basic science in his lab. His foundational science was fundamental to the birth of the nascent field of GLP-1 biology and changed the fields of endocrinology and clinical medicine.” – Daniel J. Drucker, MD, senior investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health, and a university professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine in Ontario
In 2020, Habener, along with Drucker and Jens Juul Holst, MD, DMSc, professor, Department of Biomedical Sciences; Group Leader, Translational Metabolic Physiology, Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, took home the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize their discoveries about the function of key intestinal hormones, their effects on metabolism, and the subsequent design of treatments for type 2 diabetes, obesity, and short bowel syndrome — the first time in many years in this prestigious award has gone to investigators in the field of endocrinology.
“These are diseases with a high morbidity and mortality and are attracting greater research efforts to understand the pathophysiology and to develop effective therapies to combat them,” Habener told Endocrine News at the time. “Obesity and its ensuing constellation of ensuing disorders known as the metabolic syndrome include diabetes, steatohepatitis, hypertension, and even dementia and certain types of cancer.”
The next year, Habener, Drucker, and Holst were recognized with the 2021 Canada Gairdner International Award for their research on glucagon-like peptides that led to major advances in the treatment of type 2 diabetes, obesity, and intestinal disorders. The independent and collaborative work of Habener, Drucker, and Holst enhanced the understanding of how gastrointestinal organs function and created new classes of drugs for the treatment of metabolic disorders, specifically type 2 diabetes, obesity and short bowel syndrome.
The three discovered glucagon-like peptides (GLP-1 and -2) and elucidated their biology and physiological function and played critical roles in the design and testing of therapies informed by their initial and subsequent discoveries. These three scientists were awarded for a combined body of work with significant impact on the field of diabetes and short bowel syndrome but were also recognized for their individual discoveries that underpin the translational results.
Habener, Knudsen, and Mojsov won the 2024 Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award again for their work on GLP-1RAs. Habener, Mojsov, and Knudsen, also received the Friends of the National Library of Medicine’s (FNLM) 2025 Distinguished Medical Science Award for their groundbreaking contributions to the development of GLP-1 therapies.
The 2025 Breakthrough Prize for Life Science was awarded to Habener, Drucker, Knudsen, Mosjov, and Holst. Nicknamed “the Oscars of Science,” the Breakthrough Prize for Life Science recognizes the world’s top scientists. Each prize is $3 million and is presented in the fields of Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics and Mathematics. “Joel’s receipt (along with his co-awardees) of the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and the 2024 Lasker–DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award has made him a likely contender for the Nobel Prize,” Daley wrote in a statement. “Although he did not live to see that recognition, the value of Joel’s discoveries will continue to accrue with time, as millions of lives are improved and saved. That extraordinary impact is its own enduring honor.”
Discovery Channel
According to Habener, his interest and work in the field of gut hormones as therapeutic targets evolved stepwise with several discoveries over several decades starting in the 1970s. “That was a time when recombinant DNA technology was being developed and my experience at the NIH convinced me to pursue a career in basic discovery research and to exploit the power of recombinant DNA technology,” Habener said.
Habener completed his training in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in1972 and became an investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, while at the same time being named chief of the newly established Laboratory of Molecular Endocrinology at MGH.
Habener used pancreatic cells from anglerfish to demonstrate that glucagon and somatostatin were encoded in the pancreatic cells as larger, precursor hormones. During additional mammal studies, he discovered two new hormones related to glucagon which are known as GLP-1 and GLP-2.
“Habener will be remembered as a visionary scientist whose discoveries transformed the field of metabolic medicine and as a highly sought after mentor who trained generations of independent investigators.” – Daniel J. Drucker, MD, senior investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health, and a university professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine in Ontario
Habener explained that each of the individual anglerfish proglucagons encoded the fish versions of glucagon and a second peptide resembling but distinct from glucagon. Habener and his colleagues named these distinct second peptides GRPs — glucagon-related peptides. Comparisons of the amino acid sequences of the GRPs, suggested sequence similarities with mammalian GIP, termed gastric inhibitory peptide, later re-named glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide.
“The remarkable findings in the studies of mammalian proglucagons was that they contained the sequence of glucagon, and not one but two additional GRPs, re- named GLP-1 and GLP-2. One of the GLPs (GLP-1) appears to be the homolog of anglerfish GRP,” Habener explained at the time. “In addition, at the level of the gene structure and organization, each of the three peptides, glucagon, GLP-1, and GLP-2 are encoded in separate exons.”
Drucker served as a fellow in Habener’s lab in the 1980s, outlined the processing of proglucagon and the biology of GLP-1 action on insulin-producing cells, which led to the development of multiple types of treatments for type 2 diabetes.
“During the three years that he spent in my lab before returning to Toronto, he first-authored, or co-authored, 12 publications describing his work, a clearly impressive accomplishment for someone who had little prior background in basic research,” Habener said of Drucker. “This high level of research productivity focused on the GLP-1s continued in Toronto. Notable early accomplishments were the creation and characterization of the GLP-1 receptor knock-out mouse and the demonstration that GLP-2 promoted the growth of the intestinal epithelium.”
Together, Habener, Drucker, and their colleagues made major contributions to endocrinology and changed the treatment of metabolic and gastrointestinal diseases. Their work is both basic and translational, a true example of bench to bedside research.
“Habener will be remembered as a visionary scientist whose discoveries transformed the field of metabolic medicine and as a highly sought after mentor who trained generations of independent investigators,” Drucker says.
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