The Science That Turned Lizard Venom Into GLP-1s Is Under Attack

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/20/opinion/glp1-research-science-funding.html

The Science That Turned Lizard Venom Into GLP-1s Is Under Attack
June 20, 2026
By Jeff Coller
Dr. Coller directs the RNA Innovation Center at Johns Hopkins University.

A slow, heavy desert lizard called the Gila monster can go months between meals. In the early 1990s, a physician-scientist named John Eng grew curious about how it keeps its blood sugar steady across those long fasts. Working with modest funds at a Veterans Affairs hospital, he and a colleague studied the lizard’s venom and isolated a molecule that behaved like a human gut hormone, except that it lasted for hours instead of minutes.

Years later, a synthetic version of that molecule became the first of the GLP-1 drugs, the class of drugs the world now knows through Ozempic and Wegovy. They are reshaping how we treat diabetes and obesity and show promise for heart disease and other conditions. They are expected to save tens of thousands of lives a year, if not more. Dr. Eng’s discovery cost almost nothing.

The system that turned that lizard into a medicine is now being dismantled. In 2025, the Trump administration froze or canceled billions of dollars in research grants. Courts have forced the release of much of the frozen money, and Congress rejected proposed cuts to the agencies, but neither controls the checkbook. Over the past year and a half, the agencies have funded fewer grants nearly each month compared with previous years.

As Congress takes up next year’s budget, the Trump administration is pushing for even deeper cuts. Last month, the administration proposed a rule that would require federal grants to be approved by political appointees and to “demonstrably advance the president’s policy priorities.” Under that rule, grant making may slow down even more.

Last year, graduate programs at major research universities cut admissions for the fall — including students who would have been the next generation of scientists. A cancer researcher named Rachael Sirianni recently told NPR that the odds of securing funding for her promising drug combination for children with brain tumors was almost zero.

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[John] Eng spent a 30-year career in bench research, endocrinology and clinical informatics at the VA Medical Center in the Bronx, where he worked under Nobel Prize recipient Rosalyn S. Yalow. In the late 1980s, Eng read studies by gastroenterologists at the National Institutes of Health about the effects of certain snake and lizard venoms on the pancreas, where insulin is produced.

Having spent years treating diabetic patients, Eng knew that maintaining normal glucose levels in diabetics is key to reducing their chances of suffering such complications as blindness, nerve damage and kidney failure. He eventually focused on looking for new peptide hormones using a chemical assay that led to the discovery of exendin-4, a peptide found in Gila monster venom. Exendin-4 acts on the GLP-1 receptor and has a relatively long half-life in blood due to its resistance to degradation by the DPP-4 enzyme compared to GLP-1. Exendin-4 was developed as exenatide into a medication for the treatment of diabetes mellitus in humans.
https://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2016/04/030.html