Jens Juul Holst
Scientific Advisory Board
Jens Juul Holst is one of the leading experts in diabetes. He further discovered the insulin-stimulating hormone, GLP-1. He is Professor of Medical Physiology and Scientific Director, Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, Section for Translational Metabolic Physiology at The Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Jens Juul Holst has been interested in the physiology of peptide hormones and neurotransmitters, in particular those related to pancreatic and gastrointestinal functions and signalling. With his co-workers, he searched for mechanisms in the gut regulating pancreatic secretion (in particular insulin and glucagon) and found the insulin-stimulating hormone GLP-1 and presented this discovery at EASD in 1986. This finding has led to the development of GLP-1 analogues that are now important injectable diabetes drugs.
Jens Juul Holst obtained his medical degree in 1978. He became professor in Physiology in 1989.
Jens Juul Holst is a member of several editorial boards (Regulatory Peptides; Endocrinology, Diabetes, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism and Journal of Diabetes Investigation. Further, he is a member of several scientific advisory boards of pharmaceutical companies (GlaxoSmithKline, Novo Nordisk, Zealand Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, Sanofi, MSD, Intarcia, Hamni.
He has held a number of institutional responsibilities at the UCPH (Member of the Curriculum Committee of the Medical School, Chairman of the board, Dept. Experimental Medicine, Research Committee of the Medical Faculty, Member of board, Vice chairman Dept. Biomedical Sciences, Chairman of the council for preclinical studies at the Medical Faculty, Member of the board, Dept. Medical Physiology).
Jens Juul Holst has received a number of prestigious awards and acknowledgements (The Anders Jahre Senior Medical Prize, The Marie and August Krogh Award, The European Medal of the Society for Endocrinology, The Bagger-Sørensen Award, The KFJ prize of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, The Knud Lundbæk award and lecture of the Scandinavian Society for the Study of Diabetes, The “Claude Bernard lecture and award” of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, The “Paul Langerhans Medal” of the German Diabetes Association, The Novo Nordisk Award for Medical Research, The Odd Fellow award for medical research, The Anders Jahre Medical Prize to young medical scientists).
Jens Juul Holst has been the head a laboratory that has generated more than 25 Doctor of Medical Sciences degrees and more than 30 Ph.D. degrees and has himself published around 1,200 publications including original studies, chapters in textbooks and review articles, H-index = 117 (4 September 2015). According to Lab Times, the most cited (living) physiologist globally 1996-2006.
