Word: insulin
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...nearly four decades, Kahn has utilized theory, molecular models, and animal experiments to elucidate the mechanisms behind how insulin functions in diabetes patients. And last month, Kahn was awarded the first annual Manpei Suzuki International Prize for Diabetes Research for the extensive work he has done “from the discovery of alterations in insulin binding in the disease state to the generation of tissue-specific insulin receptor knockout mice,” according to the foundation’s Web site...
...Kahn began studying diabetes in 1970, when he started a fellowship at the NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease (NIDDK). When Kahn began his research, it was known that insulin regulated blood sugar by binding to a specific receptor on cells. But Kahn’s lab was the first to discover the mechanism of this activation, which involves the addition of a phosphate molecule to the amino acid tyrosine...
...Kahn has also researched insulin resistance, a phenomenon that is central to Type 2 Diabetes but about which little was known in the 1970s. Kahn has devoted his career to studying the various aspects of Type 2, which represents roughly 90 percent of worldwide diabetes cases. The condition is acquired due to interaction between genes and environmental factors like obesity, and it is spreading rapidly—the annual rate of new cases in the U.S. is 9.8 per 1,000 people...
...Before insulin was discovered in the 1920s, “diabetic children would die,” said Koulmanda, who is an assistant professor of surgery at the Medical School...
With the new treatment, Kolumanda said, the protein suppresses the cells that would inhibit the production of insulin and increases the production of those that enchance it. This, she said, creates “a very friendly environment where the beta cells are not attacked anymore and where the [insulin-producing] cells can recover and multiply...