BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BPGbio, a pioneering biology-first, AI-powered, clinical-stage biopharma specializing in mitochondrial biology and protein homeostasis, and Joslin Diabetes Center, the world's leading diabetes care and research center, announced the publication of a study titled “Light-responsive adipose-hypothalamus axis controls metabolic regulation” in the peer reviewed journal Nature Communications.
The study, a close collaboration between the Joslin Diabetes Center and BPGbio showed that:
- Exposing blue light on the subcutaneous white adipose tissue of mice for eight days alleviated metabolic abnormalities induced in mice fed a high fat diet
- Blue light exposure also reduced lipid accumulation and the size of fat cells
- The interaction between fat tissue and the brain is essential for the observed positive effects
- Human fat cells responded similarly to blue light, suggesting this mechanism could have real-world applications
Together, the findings suggest that light-responsive treatments could offer a novel approach to managing obesity and its associated metabolic disorders by leveraging the body’s natural responses to light.
“1 in 8 people globally are living with obesity, and findings from this study have the potential to make managing obesity a lot easier, and potentially cheaper," said Principal Investigator of the study, Yu-Hua Tseng, Ph.D., Principal Investigator in the Section on Integrative Physiology and Metabolism at Joslin Diabetes Center as well as Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “The Joslin team was pleased to have partnered with the BPGbio team on this research and BPGbio’s world class scientific team and their advanced multi-omic analysis made this study possible.”
Through comprehensive multi-omics analysis, which is part of BPGbio’s NAi Interrogative Biology® Platform, BPGbio’s team identified the metabolic mechanism of action for the positive impact blue light has on fat cells, demonstrating that fat’s ability to sense light is a gateway to reprogramming metabolism in the body.
“It was an esteemed pleasure to collaborate with the Joslin team to make critical advances in obesity research and care,” said Michael Kiebish, Ph.D., VP of Platform and Translational Science at BPGbio. “The NAi platform helped us uncover novel insights into fat sensing mechanisms through blue light, accelerating our understanding of complex biological processes and paving the way for developing new therapeutics for obesity and its related disease.”
About the NAi Interrogative Biology Platform
The NAi Interrogative Biology Platform combines BPGbio’s industry-leading, clinically annotated proprietary biobank, purpose-built Bayesian artificial intelligence, and the compute power of the world’s fastest supercomputer, Frontier, housed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Collectively, these tools enable the company to bring artificial intelligence to biology, inspiring AI-driven target nomination, discovery, molecule design, and more. The platform has been used to identify more than 100 drug targets and diagnostic biomarkers and supported research collaborations with a range of government, industry, and academic partners including the U.S. Department of Defense, Sanofi, and Harvard Medical School.
About BPGbio, Inc.
BPGbio is a leading AI-powered clinical stage biopharma and diagnostics company focused on oncology, neurology, and rare diseases. The company has a deep portfolio of AI-developed pipeline of therapeutics, including several in late-stage development. BPGbio’s novel approach is underpinned by NAi, its proprietary Interrogative Biology Platform, protected by over 400 U.S. and international patents, one of the world’s largest clinically annotated non-governmental biobanks, and exclusive access to the most powerful supercomputer in the world. With these tools, BPGbio is redefining how patient biology can be modeled using unbiased AI. Headquartered in Boston, the company is at the forefront of a new era in medicine, combining biology, data, and AI to transform the way we understand aging, human performance, and diagnose and treat disease. For more information, visit bpgbio.com.
About Joslin Diabetes Center
Joslin Diabetes Center is part of Beth Israel Lahey Health, a health care system that brings together academic medical centers and teaching hospitals, community and specialty hospitals, and more than 4,000 physicians and 35,000 employees in a shared mission to expand access to great care and advance the science and practice of medicine through groundbreaking research and education.
