History is replete with numerous examples of unequal treatment at workplaces, denial of recognition and other impediments faced by women scientists. The most recent one is that of Katalin Kariko, a Hungarian-born American biochemist, who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine last year. She was humiliated during her research on mRNA, being opposed at multiple levels like deprivation of funds, termination of a research fellowship, demotion in service, and rejection of her papers for publication by peers. Interestingly, her m-RNA research finally led to the development of Covid-19 vaccines which saved millions of lives. Finally, she was lucky enough to get the Nobel Prize in 2023.

But fighting for the recovery of the lost honour and credit is rarely seen among women scientists. Here is the story of a woman scientist of recent times who fought for the recovery of the recognition of her work denied by her fellow scientists and her struggles and challenges to get back her credit. Ozempic and Wegovy are two very important and popular drugs used to control diabetes and obesity. The key component of these medicines is Glucagon like Peptide 1 (GLP1). Mojsov Svetlana, born in Yugoslavia (now Croatia), was one of the key investigators in identifying the role of GLP-1 in controlling diabetes and its synthesis.

Unfortunately, she was elbowed out while patenting this discovery by her teammates, the patent which raked billions of dollars in the form of royalties when it was transformed into a drug for the treatment of diabetes and obesity. She was upset when she came to know about this collusion, but finally garnered strength with the support received from friends and fellow scientists to fight back. After a long legal battle, she was able to include her name as a co-inventor of all the patents. Svetlana after having her undergraduate degree in physical chemistry in Belgrade migrated to the USA in 1972.

She joined Rockefeller University as a graduate student under the supervision of Robert Bruce Merrifield, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1984. Svetlana obtained the Ph.D. degree under the title “Studies on solid-phase peptide synthesis: the synthesis of glucagon” from New York University in 1978. During this time, she met a Brazilian-born immunologist Dr. Michel Nussenzweig, and got married. According to Svetlana, her husband was very supportive of her research, even before she married, he helped by bringing cups of tea for her to release her stress of thesis writing.

Svetlana continued her research as a post-doctoral fellow in Merrifield’s laboratory and mastered the techniques of glucagon synthesis. Glucagon is a hormone released from the pancreas of the body. The pancreas also releases insulin. While insulin lowers blood sugar (glucose), glucagon raises it. This triggered the idea in the mind of scientists that suppressing the release of glucagon might help in treating Type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is the most common type of diabetes which occurs when the body becomes resistant to insulin or does not make enough insulin. Testing this idea to be true requires a steady supply of glucagon and synthesis of glucagon was not an easy job.

The timing of Svetlana’s method of glucagon synthesis was perfect and helped the scientists to proceed further to check their thought. In the early 1980s her husband Nussenzweig joined Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) as a medical resident. Svetlana followed her husband and joined the endocrine unit of MGH as an instructor. Her main job was to synthesize peptides and deliver them to the unit’s scientists for their use. Svetlana used time available after her committed job on her own research to understand more about the mysterious GLP-1 with a single technician and a lab bench offered to her.

At the same time, two floors below where Svetlana worked at MGH, a senior endocrinologist Joel Habener was independently studying glucagon obtained from the pancreas of anglerfish available at Boston Harbour. In 1984 the lab hired a new postdoctoral fellow named Drucker. With little experience working in a lab, Drucker found it difficult to achieve success alone. Although Svetlana was not a part of Habener’s group, the group knew Svetlana’s work. At Habener’s suggestions, Drucker approached Svetlana, in the summer of 1984 for collaboration. Habener’s team was impressed by the progress Svetlana had singlehandedly made in tracking different stretches of GLP-1 peptide in various rat tissues.

In 1986 a joint paper with Svetlana as the first and Habener as the second author was published confirming the presence of GLP 1 in the intestines. The paper of Majsov and Habener is considered a landmark in this field. Next year Svetlana, Haberner and Gordon Weir reported that GLP 1 induces insulin in a whole rat pancreas while Jens Juul Holst of Copenhagen reported the same in a pig pancreas. Two patents were issued in 1992 on GLP-1 for its use in controlling diabetes with Habener as the sole inventor leaving the name of Svetlana out. This is the beginning of her harassment. The prestigious Canada Gairdner Award, awarded for the world’s most significant biomedical research discoveries, was awarded in 2021 to the trio Joel Habener, Daniel Drucker and Jens Holst “for research on glucagon-like peptides that has led to major advances in the treatment of Type 2 diabetes, obesity and intestinal disorders” with Sveltana’s name mysteriously absent.

After hearing this announcement, Svetlana was upset. The only comment that came from the exasperated Svetlana was “I still don’t understand how I was excluded.” The New York Times published a long article on this discovery without mentioning Svetlana’s name. It was Francis Barrany of Weill Cornell Medicine who submitted a letter requesting the NYT to publish an erratum on this article. Svetlana, being an intensely private person, did not discuss her frustration with others. It was only on the insistence of a few colleagues that she stood up and decided to fight. In her own words “I always thought my papers would speak for themselves. But high-profile journals were publishing papers that downplayed or omitted my contributions. That’s when I decided to stand up for myself.”

She protested her omission in one of her articles published in Nature, another correction appeared in Cell after she voiced objections to a paper published in 2021. Patents were licensed to the drug company Novo Nordisk. Svetlana ultimately engaged a law firm in 1997 seeking co-inventorship. After a long legal battle of about seven years, Svetlana was added to all four patents as a co-inventor. A fifth patent was awarded in 2006 to both scientists. The estimated GLP-1 drug sales in 2022 is about $22 billion. MGH agreed to award Svetlana one-third of drug royalties, with Habener getting the rest.

Svetlana declined to disclose the amount of payout she received but said that “for an academician, it was still nice.” The adage ‘better late than never’ became a reality when Rockefeller University awarded the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize to Svetlana on April 17 this year for her hormonal research for insulin production in treating diabetes and obesity. Svetlana’s story raises thorny questions about the integrity of scientific enterprises, male chauvinism in the scientific world, gender disparity in recognizing contributions and the credibility of award-deciding committees. Svetlana’s story is also inspirational to women scientists to fight for their rights.

(The writer, an author, was Editor-in-Chief of the journal Science and Culture for about two decades.)