Pierre De Meyts (born 1944) is a Belgian

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and

biochemist Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. They study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. Biochemists study DNA, proteins and Cell (biology), cell parts. The word "biochemist" is a portmanteau of ...

known for his research on fine chemical and kinetic aspects of

ligand In coordination chemistry, a ligand is an ion or molecule (functional group) that binds to a central metal atom to form a coordination complex. The bonding with the metal generally involves formal donation of one or more of the ligand's electr ...

receptor Receptor may refer to: * Sensory receptor, in physiology, any structure which, on receiving environmental stimuli, produces an informative nerve impulse *Receptor (biochemistry), in biochemistry, a protein molecule that receives and responds to a ...

interaction, subunit assembly, and specific

metabolic Metabolism (, from el, μεταβολή ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cell ...

(as well as mitogenic) effects of

hormones A hormone (from the Ancient Greek, Greek participle , "setting in motion") is a class of cell signaling, signaling molecules in multicellular organisms that are sent to distant organs by complex biological processes to regulate physiology and beh ...

typically causing receptor tyrosine kinase activation such as

insulin Insulin (, from Latin ''insula'', 'island') is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the ''INS'' gene. It is considered to be the main anabolic hormone of the body. It regulates the metabolism o ...

and insulin-like growth factors (IGFs). He has also studied receptor signalling for other peptide hormones such as

growth hormone Growth hormone (GH) or somatotropin, also known as human growth hormone (hGH or HGH) in its human form, is a peptide hormone that stimulates growth, cell reproduction, and cell regeneration in humans and other animals. It is thus important in h ...

and

relaxin Relaxin is a protein hormone of about 6000 Da first described in 1926 by Frederick Hisaw. The relaxin family peptide hormones belong to the insulin superfamily and consists of seven peptides of high structural but low sequence similarity; rela ...

, and key pathophysiological aspects of

diabetes mellitus Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ap ...

. De Meyts held

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

ial posts for over three decades at several European and United States institutions and currently is an emeritus professor in the Science Faculty at the

Université catholique de Louvain The Université catholique de Louvain (also known as the Catholic University of Louvain, the English translation of its French name, and the University of Louvain, its official English name) is Belgium's largest French-speaking university. It ...

. While living in

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

(1990-2010) he occupied executive research positions at

Novo Nordisk Novo Nordisk A/S is a Danish multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Bagsværd, Denmark, with production facilities in nine countries, and affiliates or offices in five countries. Novo Nordisk is controlled by majority shareholder ...

. De Meyts (a.k.a. Chuck) is also known as a science cartoonist.

Biography

De Meyts was born in Verviers (Belgium) in 1944. He attended

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

at the Athénée Royal de Verviers, where he read "Humanités Anciennes" (Latin-Mathématiques). In 1969 De Meyts received his MD with honors ("Grande Distinction") from the University of Liège Medical School, and during the subsequent three years he specialized in internal medicine at the Hôpital de Bavière. Soon after he spent three years at NIH as a visiting scientist. During this NIH period De Meyts became a prominent member of the research group led by Jesse Roth, studying

insulin receptor The insulin receptor (IR) is a transmembrane receptor that is activated by insulin, IGF-I, IGF-II and belongs to the large class of receptor tyrosine kinase. Metabolically, the insulin receptor plays a key role in the regulation of glucose homeo ...

s, and authoring a dozen original papers in duly indexed journals. In 1976, after NIH, he returned to Belgium where he occupied academic positions at universities including the

Vrije Universiteit Brussel The Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) () is a Dutch and English-speaking research university located in Brussels, Belgium.The Vrije Universiteit Brussel is one of the five universities officially recognised by the Flemish Community, Flemish gov ...

and the International Institute of Cellular and Molecular Pathology (now called "de Duve Institute",

). De Meyts then moved to California (1984-1990), where he joined the

Beckman Research Institute The Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope (BRI) is a not-for-profit medical research facility located at and partnering with the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California, United States. It is dedicated to studying normal a ...

of City of Hope, (

Duarte Duarte may refer to: * Duarte (surname), person's surname (or composed surname) and given name * Duarte, California, United States * Duarte Province, Dominican Republic * Pico Duarte Pico Duarte is the highest peak in the Dominican Republic, on th ...

) and also taught at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

for a short period. Immediately after, De Meyts was recruited by Novo Nordisk where he successively became the director of research of the Hagedorn Research Institute (1990-2000), scientific director of its Receptor Systems Biology Laboratory (2000-2010), and corporate vice-president of the company. During this period in Denmark until 2011 De Meyts simultaneously held academic posts as

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the genera ...

of experimental endocrinology (2000-2005) and guest lecturer (2007-2011) at the University of Copenhagen Faculty of Health Sciences. Since then De Meyts returned to his home country and founded his own consulting company in Kraainem, where he remains professionally active.

Research

De Meyts began his research career while a medical student at the University of Liège, collaborating with mentors such as Jean Lecomte and Annie Cession-Fossion in studies of the vascular actions of sympathomimetics. During a three-year visit to NIH starting in 1973, De Meyts got involved in what -by far- would become his major research fields: hormone-receptor interaction of peptide hormones and the study of the physiopathogenesis of diabetes. In the latter field his article with Steven G. Gray was the first to propose the possible etiological role of

epigenetic In biology, epigenetics is the study of stable phenotypic changes (known as ''marks'') that do not involve alterations in the DNA sequence. The Greek prefix '' epi-'' ( "over, outside of, around") in ''epigenetics'' implies features that are "o ...

factors in diabetes. Also, De Meyts's articles first coined the term ''diabetogenes ''(1993), a new concept which has gained significant acceptance among independent peers in many countries (France, US, Japan and Denmark). Below is a list of De Meyts's most notable research topics and achievements: * Growth hormone effects and signalling in adipocytes and IM-9 lymphocytes *Demonstration of negative cooperativity in insulin and IGF receptors as well as other RTKs and GPCRs *Delineation of the two receptor binding surfaces of insulin and IGFs *Molecular basis of mitogenicity of insulin and insulin analogues *Mathematical model of the insulin and IGF-I receptor based on bivalent crosslinking of a harmonic oscillator (with Vladislav Kiselyov) *Diabetogenes concept of T2D pathogenesis * Theoretical analysis of hormone-receptor based drug design in cancer and diabetes

Papers

De Meyt's most recent papers as a main author include: * De Meyts, Pierre (2015-04). "Insulin/receptor binding: the last piece of the puzzle? What recent progress on the structure of the insulin/receptor complex tells us (or not) about negative cooperativity and activation". ''BioEssays: News and Reviews in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology''. 37 (4): 389–397. doi:10.1002/bies.201400190.

ISSN An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs ...

1521-1878. PMID 25630923 * De Meyts, Pierre (2016), Feingold, Kenneth R.; Anawalt, Bradley; Boyce, Alison; Chrousos, George (eds.), "The Insulin Receptor and Its Signal Transduction Network", ''Endotext'', South Dartmouth (MA): MDText.com, Inc., PMID 27512793 * De Meyts, Pierre (2016). "Structural basis for the poisonous activity of a predator's venom insulin". ''Nature Structural & Molecular Biology''. 23 (10): 872–874. doi:10.1038/nsmb.3304.

1545-9985. PMID 27706132 * Rostène, William; De Meyts, Pierre (2021-09-28). "Insulin: A 100-Year-Old Discovery With a Fascinating History". ''Endocrine Reviews''. 42 (5): 503–527. doi:10.1210/endrev/bnab020.

1945-7189. PMID 34273145

Career

* 1969, M.D. University of Liege Medical School, Belgium * 1972, Internal Medicine, University of Liege Medical School * 1995, Degree of "Agrégé de l'Enseignement Supérieur" (Ph.D.) at the Catholic University of Louvain * 1997, Fellow of the American College of Endocrinology * 2006, Elected to ScanBalt Academy

Editorial activity

De Meyts is chief specialty editor of '' Frontiers in Molecular and Structural Endocrinology'', associate editor of ''Frontiers in Systems Biology'', and member of the editorial board of the ''

Journal of Biological Chemistry The ''Journal of Biological Chemistry'' (''JBC'') is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1905., jbc.org Since 1925, it is published by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. It covers research in ...

''.

Awards

* 1975, Solomon Berson

Research and Development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...

Award from the

American Diabetes Association The American Diabetes Association (ADA) is a United States-based nonprofit that seeks to educate the public about diabetes and to help those affected by it through funding research to manage, cure and prevent diabetes (including type 1 diabetes, ...

* 1978, Alumni Prize of the "Fondation Universitaire" (Belgium) * 1979, Diaz Cristobal Prize of the Spanish Diabetes Association (shared with Jesse Roth) * 1981, Oskar Minkowski Prize of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes * 1995, Quinquennial Joseph Maisin Scientific Prize for the Biomedical Sciences by the Belgian

National Fund for Scientific Research The National Fund for Scientific Research (NFSR) (Dutch: ''Nationaal Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek'' (NFWO), French: ''Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique'' (FNRS)) was once a government institution in Belgium for supporting scient ...

* 2002,

Christophe Plantin Prize The Christophe Plantin Prize ('' French: Prix Christoffel Plantin''), is a Belgian civilian prize, intended to reward a Belgian citizen who resides abroad, who has made significant contributions to cultural, artistic or scientific activities. Nam ...

, Belgium * 2004, Gold Medal of 75th Anniversary of "Association des Amis de l’Université de Liège" * 2005,

American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists The American Association of Clinical Endocrinology (AACE), formerly known as the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, is a professional community of physicians specializing in endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism. AACE's missio ...

: Frontiers in Science Award

Cartoonist

De Meyts's often iconoclastic cartoons first attained notoriety among

francophone French became an international language in the Middle Ages, when the power of the Kingdom of France made it the second international language, alongside Latin. This status continued to grow into the 18th century, by which time French was the l ...

readers during the student upheavals occurring in 1968–69. Many of his cartoons and posters from this period are archived and can be consulted at the ''Institut d’histoire ouvrière, économique et sociale'' in

Seraing Seraing (; wa, Serè) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. The municipality consists of the following districts: Boncelles, Jemeppe-sur-Meuse, Ougrée, and Seraing. With Liège, Herstal, Saint ...

. Once a scientist, he began drawing satirical science-cartoons. Many of these have been published in mainstream journals such as ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

'', ''

Trends in Biochemical Sciences A fad or trend is any form of collective behavior that develops within a culture, a generation or social group in which a group of people enthusiastically follow an impulse for a short period. Fads are objects or behaviors that achieve short- ...

'', and '' Trends in Pharmacological Sciences''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:De Meyts, Pierre 1944 births Living people Belgian biochemists Belgian endocrinologists Academic staff of Vrije Universiteit Brussel People from Verviers Academic staff of the Université catholique de Louvain Academic staff of the University of Copenhagen University of Liège alumni University of Southern California faculty Minkowski Prize recipients