Joslin Diabetes Center scientists have discovered a group of genes that govern the genesis of calorie-burning fat cells. This discovery may lead to novel ways to treat obesity in humans. “With obesity at epidemic levels, finding new ways to treat it is one of medicine’s holy grails,” said C. Ronald Kahn, M.D., President of Joslin Diabetes Center, the Mary K. Iacocca Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS), and principal investigator of the study that appears in the June edition of the journal Nature Cell Biology. In laboratory studies of mouse cells, his research team identified genes that govern how precursor cells give rise to mature brown fat cells.
