
“Metabolism” describes the body’s chemical changes that create the necessary materials for growth and overall health. Metabolites are the substances made and used during these metabolic processes—or, as a new discovery out of Scripps Research and its drug development arm, Calibr, indicates, they could also be potent molecules for treating severe diseases. In a study published on August 16, 2022 in Metabolites, the researchers used novel drug discovery technologies to uncover a metabolite that converts white fat cells (“bad” fat) to brown fat (“good” fat) cells. This discovery offers a potential way of addressing metabolic conditions like obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Even more, it speaks to the promise of using this creative drug discovery method to identify countless other potential therapeutics. The open-access article is titled “Drug-Initiated Activity Metabolomics Identifies Myristoylglycine as a Potent Endogenous Metabolite for Human Brown Fat Differentiation.”