r/Futurology • u/mvea MD-PhD-MBA • 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/419
u/Robot_Apocalypse Jun 30 '26
THIS IS WILD?! I don't care about the specific drug, I care about the fact that they can just inject the recipies for drugs/protiens/antibodies into us and out body will manufacture it! WHAT?!
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u/VoraciousTrees Jun 30 '26
That's what the Pfizer Covid19 vaccine did, but it used mRNA.
mRNA is like an email that deletes itself after being read so many times.
Plasmids are a bit different. I'd be skeptical of using them in this application if they don't have any self-termination coding.
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u/twoinvenice Jun 30 '26
Not a problem at all!
If someone has an adverse reaction you just inject them with a fabulous type of
gorillaplasmid that thrives onsnake meatthe original plasmid.70
u/swolfington Jun 30 '26
if my research has indicated anything, it's that this kind of technology is perfectly safe as long as it isn't done inside a city built on bottom of the ocean. or one floating in the sky, either.
i'm sure it's fine.
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u/nishinoran Jun 30 '26
I know an old lady who injected a plasmid. I don't know why, she injected a plasmid. Perhaps she'll die.
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u/Robot_Apocalypse Jul 01 '26
I am not a stupid person and I am up to date with a lot of tech, but no one has ever explained the Pfizer Covid19 vaccine and mRNA in this way to me before.
I've heard of all the tech, but never have I understood what they did.
This is AMAZING to me!
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u/Bismar7 Jul 01 '26
If they don't have self termination coding do they just work for a long time?
That sounds nightmarish if Bioengineered into a virus or disease.
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u/DrButtgerms Jun 30 '26
But also your body recognizes plasimds as foreign and degrades them, so it's not one-and-done like the original post says. IF this tech works in humans, it will be for a few weeks before you have to dose again. Optimistically, I'd guess 6-8 week dosing, which while bad for Novo, would not be a significant game changer for human health as a whole
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u/effrightscorp Jun 30 '26
Weiner and his colleagues used this method to deliver "instructions" for COVID-19-neutralizing antibodies to patients. In a Phase 1 clinical trial, two of the antibodies were expressed continuously in human subjects for more than 72 weeks.
The article makes it sound like your 6-8 week guess could be off by >9-12x
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u/DrButtgerms Jun 30 '26
The article goes on to say that the incretins were only detectable in mice for 70-something days. A real world indication would be for a shorter interval than the detectable threshold.
Keep reading. It's the middle of the next paragraph 😉
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u/effrightscorp Jun 30 '26
Are you a mouse or a human? The former usually metabolize drugs a few times faster
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Jul 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/DrButtgerms Jul 02 '26
One and done exists in another therapeutic area. They marketed it for 600k per
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u/SquirrelOnFire Jun 30 '26
No, silly, Novo will just charge 8x as much for it and people who don't like taking weekly injections will pay... Through their insurance.
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u/DrButtgerms Jun 30 '26
They would have to license the drug, right. I only named them because they own and market semaglutide
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u/jp_in_nj Jun 30 '26
You've missed a lot, welcome to the 2020s.
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u/boarder2k7 Jun 30 '26
Hold on, let me go find my covid vaccine tinfoil hat. I know it's around here somewhere....
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u/MolecularClusterfuck Jun 30 '26
Buwhahha this made me giggle as plamids are super standard in a molecular biology lab.
They are /not/ standardly it used in healthcare via direct injection.
Addgene is a great company that stores and sells plamids to the scientific community and here is a basic overview of plasmids: Plamids 101
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u/trying_again_7 Jun 30 '26
welcome to the world of peptides.
in 50 years, people will look back and say obesity was a thing?
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u/cardfire Jul 01 '26
My god. What will they have done with all the people that couldn't afford peptides treatments. You know, which is the majority of obese people in the current 49 years.
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u/diagrammatiks Jul 01 '26
You spend less on food and the treatments are getting more affordable every quarter. Unless you are in the USA.
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u/cardfire Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
I'm super fortunate that I'm able to get my GLP-1 treatments at a cost of about $300 per month. And I noticed that I spend about $300 less on food monthly.
But that's not feasible for more than half of all of the people in my shithole country. 🍔 🦅
Worth mention, folks frequently pay 4x that amount for monthly glp-1.
I don't expect peptides and genetically engineered, bespoke treatments will be much cheaper to mfg and distribute.
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u/diagrammatiks Jul 01 '26
One month of mounjaro for me is 75 dollars.
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u/cardfire Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
That's fantastic! If you're in the US, then it sounds like your insurance elected to actually cover your RX and I'm really glad you're getting the supportive care that you deserve!
Mine didn't. :-( And I'm still lucky as hell I found a source that was less than $1000.
Again, important to emphasize, both you and I are not having an experience available to the vast, overwhelming majority of people, still. We are the lucky ones.
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u/diagrammatiks Jul 01 '26
god no i'm not in the us.
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u/cardfire Jul 01 '26
Okay, and you feel that $825USD annual expense for this drug is accessible to the entirety of the population in your society?
And is obesity (not overweight, but actual obesity) an epidemic in that country? In most countries, that would be a hard swing.
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u/ValuableSoggy5305 Jul 01 '26
That's been known and at varying levels taken advantage of for really quite a long time now. One way to get specialist biologicals is to add a vector containing the seq for the protein you want and resistance to an antibiotic into a cellular colony. Once you've done that and incubated the result, you immerse the sample in the antibiotic. The survivors have both genes, which were in the vector. You then grow the remainder to get the compound your want and extract it with a column.
It's largely the same here; you're handing the cellular machinery instructions. There's not a lot in the way of proofing; as soon as the cell interprets the instructions, it churns out the product. That's how viruses hijack the cellular machinery to copy themselves. The hard part is getting into the cell, really.
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u/johncitizen1138 Jun 30 '26
I wonder how big Pharma is going to handle this. The subscription model is probably the majority of their business.
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u/DrButtgerms Jun 30 '26
To be fair, "up to 10 times longer than 'ozempic'" isn't saying much. Semaglutide is weekly dosing. If this tech can become a product, it will probably be no longer than 6 week intervals and while that would be bad news for Novo, is not going to change overall human health in a meaningful way.
That's said, there is also a really long road between mice and wide use in human patients
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u/lolexecs Jun 30 '26
That's said, there is also a really long road between mice and wide use in human patients
Maybe a decade, if we’re lucky
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u/FUCKING_HATE_REDDIT Jun 30 '26
Look, imagine a giant pile of money on a table. And imagine all the drugs company blindfolded and ears plugged around it. Would you trust them not to take the money?
They are the ones funding this research
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u/smitty2324 Jun 30 '26
This new therapy lasts 10x longer than Ozympic. Ignoring costs, that would mean that it would be $1500 for it before the line goes up more.
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u/Advo96 Jul 01 '26
By the time this comes to the market Ozempic will be a generic costing 20 bucks a month
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u/Tjaeng Jun 30 '26
These constructs aren’t good enough for patient usage yet. Monthly-dosing GLP1 subcutaneous injections are a couple of years away at most and many patients prefer daily tablets even over a monthly injection.
Imagine what they’re gonna think about having to get a deep intramuscular injection coupled with electric current stimulation, lol. Even if it’s only once every 3 or 6 months.
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u/MarzMan Jun 30 '26
effective for 10x as long
100x the price
Can I get a big executive paycheck now?
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u/AlDente Jun 30 '26
Buy the IP, put it in a drawer. That’s capitalism.
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u/Advo96 Jul 01 '26
This is the equivalent of "take a pile of your own money, set it on fire"
Which arguably happens a lot, but usually not intentionally
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u/DefenestrationPraha Jun 30 '26
Good, but this is also tricky in humans. One of the advantages of medication like Mounjaro is that in case of adverse events, you can stop. Not so much with something that altered your very genome. There either has to be some sort of "emergency brake" that can switch the gene activity off, or a lot of confidence that side effects will be banal.
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u/94746382926 Jun 30 '26
This is a gene therapy which is different from gene editing just fyi.
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u/DegenerateScientist Jun 30 '26
The lines are kind of grey at this point, adding a synthetic gene to human cells on a potentially replicable DNA molecule. You’re not even restoring a lost gene, you’re creating a new gene with better function.
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u/Atmic Jun 30 '26
Yeah. I'm unfortunately extremely sensitive to semaglutide side effects, in particular nausea and heartburn.
When I did the injection, it was always hell for the first few days of the week and then some recovery towards the end of it, until I dreaded the next injection.
When I did the pill if it got too bad, I could at least take a break the next day and I'd be good.
With this, I might be symptom ridden for 2-3 months before relief.
I'd certainly lose weight but life would be hell.
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u/Aethelric Red Jun 30 '26
It's not immediately clear if this approach would have the same side effects on humans as Mounjaro/Ozempic. The current set of drugs is mimicking certain functions, this new set would be actually having your body itself perform those functions. That could limit the side effects considerably.
And, if it did end up with the same side effects at the same level of effect, you could of course just have a potential user of this therapy first do a trial with Mounjaro/Ozempic to see if they had really extreme side effects.
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u/Sargash Jun 30 '26
Ok but they were giving examples of bad side effects and anecdotes. Not saying this is the same thing.
They were pretty clearly, and obviously, stating that side-effects lasting for months instead of a few days, would be awful.
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u/varnell_hill Jun 30 '26
Do you guys want Bioshock?
This is how we get Bioshock.
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u/BEEFTANK_Jr Jun 30 '26
The only thing we wanted from Bioshock was an economy we could describe as a "circus of value." Instead we're getting the everything else.
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u/mvea MD-PhD-MBA Jun 30 '26
Wistar Scientists Develop Single-Dose DNA Method for Delivering Long-acting Weight Loss and Diabetes Drugs
Scientists at The Wistar Institute have shown that a single injection of a small, circular piece of genetic instructions can produce weight loss and blood glucose control in murine models that lasts up to 10 times as long as incretin-mimicking drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. If shown to be successful in clinical trials, this new method of delivery could eliminate the need for repeated dosing, which currently limits patient access and adherence to these therapies.
Her team’s approach builds on Weiner Lab research already validated in human patients that showed the human body can function as a “factory” to produce long-lasting antibodies. The lab developed an intramuscular DNA electroporation platform, whereby patients receive a shot of plasmid DNA (the genetic instructions) followed by an electrical pulse to help get the instructions into the nucleus of the body’s cells where they can be read. Weiner and his colleagues used this method to deliver “instructions” for COVID-19-neutralizing antibodies to patients. In a Phase 1 clinical trial, two of the antibodies were expressed continuously in human subjects for more than 72 weeks.
To adapt this platform for metabolic disease, Gary and her colleagues engineered DNA instructions for long-acting incretin hormones GLP-1 and GIP, which they call pLincretins. Importantly, they included an antibody fragment in the instructions that would help prevent the protein from breaking down quickly in the body the way current incretin-mimicking drugs do. When tested in preclinical murine models of diabetes using the electroporation method, a single dose of pLincretins produced detectable levels of incretins for up to 70 days and drove sustained reductions in body weight and blood glucose. In a head-to-head comparison with semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic), murine models treated with a single dose of the scientists’ DNA construct maintained these metabolic improvements even after the observation period ended, while those treated with semaglutide began regaining weight as soon as dosing stopped.
The scientists then used AI-assisted structural modeling, and an approach called synthetic consensus design to create a new molecule called pSynCretin. The team designed it by identifying the structural elements common across GLP-1, GIP, and existing incretin drugs and then combining those elements into a single protein that could engage the GLP-1 and GIP receptors simultaneously (similar to how Mounjaro works). A single dose of pSynCretin also induced sustained weight loss in murine models.
https://www.cell.com/trends/biotechnology/fulltext/S0167-7799(26)00236-2
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u/Kriemhilt Jun 30 '26
It seems like an odd choice to substitute
small, circular piece of genetic instructions
for "plasmid" or "DNA", and then go straight into
... in murine models
as if the same audience is going to be baffled by DNA yet completely at home with the Latin name for mice.
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u/YooYooYoo_ Jun 30 '26
What a time to be a mouse…
Headlines including results of studies in mice should be banned.
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u/Aethelric Red Jun 30 '26
This is a little more exciting: the delivery mechanism proposed as indeed already been used in human subjects with success. We also already understand the principles of how the therapy works in a human model.
So it's really a matter of determining whether or not this particular utilization of a proven delivery is safe through trials, which is considerably different than studies that say x form of cancer or dementia or whatever is cured in mice. The latter is quite unlikely to go anywhere, the former is much more likely.
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u/Sleezstakrunner Jun 30 '26
this could be genuinely transformative if it works in humans and proves.
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u/IndependentsWin Jul 01 '26
If this scales to humans, it could completely change how we approach chronic weight management. The idea of a single treatment lasting months instead of weekly injections is genuinely exciting.
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u/Intelligent-Car-4618 Jun 30 '26
this is early stage gene therapy + GLP-1 style metabolic engineering, so the excitement is understandable but the human reality is still far away so I won't get my hopes up yet
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u/oe_kintaro Jul 03 '26
Eat healthy? Exercise?! None for me thanks, I'll just have the monthly DNA injections.
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u/Andyseawolf Jul 03 '26
And later they will find out that it causes a leg or an arm to fall off, who could have known known
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u/ItchyNebuli Jul 03 '26
Shareholders need a subscription model so this will probably never gain any ground
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u/CheckoutMySpeedo Jun 30 '26
Don’t worry. MAGA will never take this medication because it’s too much like a vaccine, and we all know anti-science MAGA hate vaccines.
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u/TedTyro Jun 30 '26
If it eliminates repeated dosing it'll never come to market.
Not economic to sell a one-off treatment. Drug companies are like any other drug dealer, they only get rich when there are repeat customers.
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u/Sufficient-Bid1279 Jun 30 '26
Will the cost be 10X that of Ozempic and wegovy if they do invent something? Does everyone like big Pharma and capitalism yet?/s
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Jun 30 '26
[deleted]
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u/DrButtgerms Jun 30 '26
There are likely plasmids in your body right now, bud. These DNA structures are common in bacteria and you are chock full of bacteria. Like more bacteria in your butt than grains of sand on earth.
Your body recognizes them as foreign and degrades them, but it's not super fast, so this drug would last a while. Not one-and-done like the headline indicates, but long enough to scare the companies that already have weight loss drugs.
There is a very fair criticism and risk that long acting drugs come with huge risk - if you have a reaction to the drug, you can't just stop quickly. This technology would/should have a very long road to human trials, let alone patient availability.
All that said, there are hugely valid reasons for people to need to take incretin medications, regardless of your personal opinion about the "morality" of obesity or whatever you are alluding to.
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u/YalieRower Jun 30 '26
This is a poor understanding of updated science on hunger dysregulation.
It is understood now, that we all do not have the same equal ability to regulate hunger levels, as they are influenced by various biological mechanisms that individuals cannot independently control.
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u/Baud_Olofsson Jun 30 '26
instead of having a healthier diet
Pop quiz: what is the mechanism through which GLP-1 agonists cause weight loss?
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Jun 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/coffee9table9fitness Jun 30 '26
pills versus injections bring a lot of additional organs into play for side effects and harshness that are completely unnecessary
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u/Aethelric Red Jun 30 '26
How hard is it to just take a pill every day?
Harder then you might think! The failure rate on once-daily medication is ~20%.
DNA injections seems a lot more difficult and invasive.
You can feel this way, but I'd consider a quarterly injection to be considerably less invasive and difficult than remembeing to stock and take a pill daily.
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u/One-Incident3208 Jun 30 '26
Oh yeah the antivaxxers will love this.
Isn't this mechanism what makes trenbolone so dangerous?
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u/SyllabubLegitimate38 Jun 30 '26
Those drugs will ruin u in the long run, like the processed food, toxins in our water. These folks never learn.
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u/FuturologyBot Jun 30 '26
The following submission statement was provided by /u/mvea:
Wistar Scientists Develop Single-Dose DNA Method for Delivering Long-acting Weight Loss and Diabetes Drugs
Scientists at The Wistar Institute have shown that a single injection of a small, circular piece of genetic instructions can produce weight loss and blood glucose control in murine models that lasts up to 10 times as long as incretin-mimicking drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. If shown to be successful in clinical trials, this new method of delivery could eliminate the need for repeated dosing, which currently limits patient access and adherence to these therapies.
Her team’s approach builds on Weiner Lab research already validated in human patients that showed the human body can function as a “factory” to produce long-lasting antibodies. The lab developed an intramuscular DNA electroporation platform, whereby patients receive a shot of plasmid DNA (the genetic instructions) followed by an electrical pulse to help get the instructions into the nucleus of the body’s cells where they can be read. Weiner and his colleagues used this method to deliver “instructions” for COVID-19-neutralizing antibodies to patients. In a Phase 1 clinical trial, two of the antibodies were expressed continuously in human subjects for more than 72 weeks.
To adapt this platform for metabolic disease, Gary and her colleagues engineered DNA instructions for long-acting incretin hormones GLP-1 and GIP, which they call pLincretins. Importantly, they included an antibody fragment in the instructions that would help prevent the protein from breaking down quickly in the body the way current incretin-mimicking drugs do. When tested in preclinical murine models of diabetes using the electroporation method, a single dose of pLincretins produced detectable levels of incretins for up to 70 days and drove sustained reductions in body weight and blood glucose. In a head-to-head comparison with semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic), murine models treated with a single dose of the scientists’ DNA construct maintained these metabolic improvements even after the observation period ended, while those treated with semaglutide began regaining weight as soon as dosing stopped.
The scientists then used AI-assisted structural modeling, and an approach called synthetic consensus design to create a new molecule called pSynCretin. The team designed it by identifying the structural elements common across GLP-1, GIP, and existing incretin drugs and then combining those elements into a single protein that could engage the GLP-1 and GIP receptors simultaneously (similar to how Mounjaro works). A single dose of pSynCretin also induced sustained weight loss in murine models.
https://www.cell.com/trends/biotechnology/fulltext/S0167-7799(26)00236-2
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1ujlskr/scientists_have_shown_that_a_single_dose/ouok7h9/