News in Science 21/2/2003 Leptin firms as a pathway for obesity drugs
Friday, 21 February 2003


"he appetite hormone leptin is one step closer to becoming a therapeutic target for obesity following an American study which has isolated its pathway in the brain.

For the first time, the study by Dr Martin Myers and colleagues at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston distinguished between leptin's reproductive and its hunger-suppressing functions.......
An odd development was that the modified obese mice could have babies - but they couldn't feed them, as they did not produce breast milk. Unless the babies were put onto a unmodified mother's breast, their babies died. "That was really interesting as well," said Morris. "It looks like STAT3 is needed for lactation, but not for reproduction.""