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Portrait Timo Müller
Helmholtz Munich | Haggenmüller

Timo Müller receives the Galenus-von-Pergamon Award 2022

Awards & Grants, Diabetes, IDO,

Timo Müller and his team have been working for many years on the development of new therapeutic options for diabetes and obesity. Among other things, they decoded a brain receptor that plays a crucial role in the regulation of body weight and food intake. For this discovery, Timo Müller, director of the Institute for Diabetes and Obesity (IDO) and group leader of the Department of Molecular Pharmacology at Helmholtz Munich, has now been awarded the Galenus-von-Pergamon prize 2022 for basic research.

The Galenus award, sponsored by Springer Medizin Verlag GmbH, is awarded for excellent research achievements. It recognizes research achievements in clinical and/or experimental pharmacology that is pioneering for progress in the field of drug and diagnostics research and has been carried out outside the pharmaceutical industry at universities or research institutions. This year’s award ceremony took place on October 20th 2022, at the Springer Medicine Gala in Hamburg (Germany). The winners are selected by an independent jury from science, medicine and pharmacy.

More that one billion people worldwide suffer from obesity and diabetes. In view of the steadily increasing numbers, therapies are urgently needed. The research group led by Timo Müller has developed a novel therapeutic approach that leads to significant weight loss and improvement in type 2 diabetes, making it one of the most promising agents for the treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes. They were also able to show that the GIP (glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide)-receptor in the brain is required for the novel therapeutic approach to be successful. Timo Müller’s team is now investigating the signaling mechanisms and brain areas through which the activation and inhibition of the GIP receptor acts to influence glucose metabolism and body weight. His goal is to thereby find new starting points for future therapies against obesity and diabetes.