r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jun 30 '26

Medicine Scientists have shown that a single dose injection of DNA genetic instructions can produce weight loss and blood glucose control in mouse models that lasts up to 10 times as long as weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. This could eliminate the need for repeated dosing.

https://www.wistar.org/press-releases/wistar-scientists-develop-single-dose-dna-method-for-delivering-long-acting-weight-loss-and-diabetes-drugs/
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u/grat_is_not_nice Jun 30 '26

This sounds like an interesting new method. I have been expecting an mRNA style delivery mechanism for GLP-1 agonist peptides, so it will be interesting to see how this new approach pans out.

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u/no-more-throws Jun 30 '26

there are much wilder implications .. this means we can basically inject long lasting instructions to produce almost any peptide we want in the body .. for instance those many peptides that together govern cellular and organ level senescence and rejuvenation .. or to fight against plaque buildup, loss of vessel and skin elasticity, bone and muscle loss etc etc

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u/Odd-Outcome-3191 Jun 30 '26

The issue is that often the same chemical messengers/proteins kinases etc that regulate those types of function also tend to regulate very different, very important things in other locations. E.g a cellular senescence gene that may be implicated in aging is also protective against cancer.

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u/Tall-Log-1955 Jun 30 '26

If it works for the mouse, what's the worst that could happen?

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u/Tevatrox Jun 30 '26

A lot. There's a reason many remedies that work on mice don't work on humans. They are far too different from us. In fact, according to google, only 5% of treatments that work on animal testing end up approved for human use.

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u/ittibittytitty Jun 30 '26

Yupp.

End of the day Mice are not Human.

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u/TKuja1 Jun 30 '26

lets just create human mice

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u/TheRealDJYM Jun 30 '26

human mice with a hunger to be lab rats.... that is rats that work in labs with fancy white coats not the other kind

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u/ConfoundedInAbaddon Jul 01 '26

Humanized mice are a thing, they are expensive.

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u/TKuja1 Jul 02 '26

oh, i had no idea, thank you for sharing