Scientists have discovered a naturally-occurring molecule that aids appetite control and weight loss so well, it may compete with popular GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic.
It’s called BRP (BRINP2-related peptide), and works by activating particular neurons in the brain in a similar way to GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) agonists. The difference between the two peptides is the metabolic route each takes to get there.
Pathology researcher Laetitia Coassolo from Stanford University led a team to design an AI-based drug discovery program called ‘Peptide Predictor’, which they used to identify 373 proteins for further investigation among thousands of possibilities. From this haystack they screened 100 peptides that might induce the kind of brain activity needed to meddle with appetite.
One of these was the tiny BRP molecule,…