Division - Molecular Pharmacology

Obesity and diabetes are major health threats in western societies. More than 2.5 billion people are currently overweight or obese and 830 million have diabetes (WHO Report 2024). New pharmacological treatment options to efficiently combat this dual obesity and diabetes epidemic are urgently required.

Design and validation of new drug targets

In cooperation with our partners from industry, our group focuses on the design and evaluation of new drugs for the treatment of diabetes and obesity. Our research goal is thereby to establish new pharmacotherapies to safely and efficiently lower the body weight while improving glucose sensitivity. During the last years we developed several pharmacotherapies that are based on co-agonism at multiple receptors, combining incretin receptor polyagonism, with agonism at the glucagon receptor. Moreover, our group pioneered the approach of combining peptide based polyagonists with small molecule nuclear receptor agonists to achieve cell and tissue specific targeting of these for enhanced potency, and we recently developed a quintuple agonist combining GIP/GLP1 receptor activation with pan-PPAR small molecule agonist.

An additional objective of our lab is to mechanistically understand the pharmacological action of first in class GIP/GLP1 agonist with a particular focus on central nervous system vs. peripheral action of the GIP and GLP1 components, as well as analysis of the particular neuronal pathways involved in their efficacy. 

Main Projects

• Design and validation of single peptides capable to activate multiple signaling mechanisms.
• Investigating the mechanism of action of GIPR-activating incretin receptor agonists. 
• Investigating the mechanism of action and efficacy of combined incretin/nuclear receptor polyagonists. 

Our aim is to establish new pharmacotherapies to safely and effectively lower body weight while improving glucose sensitivity.