When Jeffrey M. Friedman, an HHMI investigator at The Rockefeller University, announced in 1995 that he and his colleagues had discovered a hormone called leptin that melted away fat in obese mice, the New York Times wrote, "researchers have found what they hope will be a magic bullet for obesity, or at least the forerunner of major new therapies." continued...

Illustration: Brian Stauffer

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Reprinted from the HHMI Bulletin,
March 2003, pages 24–27.
©2003 Howard Hughes Medical Institute