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NYU College of Dentistry

NYU College of Dentistry

Academic Research Institution

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Researchers map how a single protein builds the calorie-burning infrastructure inside brown fat

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Home institution of senior author and primary research team

Every obesity drug on the market works by suppressing appetite — making people eat less. A team led by NYU researcher Farnaz Shamsi has now mapped a completely different route: a protein called SLIT3 that gets sliced in two by an enzyme, with each half independently building the blood vessels and nerve wiring that brown fat needs to burn calories as heat. The discovery, published in Nature Communications and validated in tissue from more than 1,500 people, identifies multiple molecular targets that could be turned into drugs.

Updated Yesterday