Never full – some people live with a feeling of extreme hunger from birth. The result is obesity, often from early childhood, caused in certain patients by defects in a central molecular signal pathway responsible for maintaining energy balance and triggering a feeling of satiety. Scientists have known for a long time that the melanocortin 4 receptor (MC4R), which is also expressed in the brain, plays a key role in this pathway. Previous attempts to activate this receptor in a targeted way to produce a feeling of fullness have failed however, above all due to critical side effects. This could now be a thing of the past. Scientists at the Charité, Berlin have obtained impressive results with a new peptide that activates MC4R. Young patients with genetic obesity lost a considerable amount of weight without significant adverse effects. The explanation: the peptide preferentially and selectively activates one of the MC4R downstream signal cascades that, up until now, had hardly been investigated. These findings offer new therapeutic and diagnostic opportunities, e.g. in identifying patients who could benefit from drug therapy.
Through the excellent cooperation between the research team led by Dr Peter Kühnen, Charité technology transfer and Ascenion, it was possible to patent these findings prior to publication. The IP potential was recognized during publication screening, allowing the findings to be developed into a patentable invention and IP protection to be secured before publication. This created a solid foundation for translation into medical application.
(Annual Review 2018)
