Daniel J. Drucker

Daniel Joshua Drucker (born 23 June 1956) is a Canadian endocrinologist. A Fellow of the Royal Society, he is a professor of medicine at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto. He is known for his research into intestinal hormones and their use in the treatment of diabetes, obesity, and other metabolic diseases, as well as intestinal failure.

Early life and education
Drucker was born and grew up in Montreal, went to high school in Ottawa, and then enrolled at the University of Ottawa, studying science. In 1976, he moved to Toronto, where he studied medicine at the University of Toronto, graduating in 1980. He completed his internship at Johns Hopkins Hospital (1980–81), and completed his internal medicine and endocrinology residencies at the University of Toronto (1980–84).

Career
Beginning in 1984, Drucker worked as a research fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Drucker was funded by a Medical Research Council of Canada Centennial Fellowship to study molecular endocrinology with Professor Joel Habener. Drucker’s discoveries in Boston included the demonstration that proglucagon could be cleaved into multiple smaller glucagon-like peptides, including several distinct isoforms of GLP-1. Along with Svetlana Mojsov, he then discovered that GLP-1(7-37) — a truncated form of GLP-1 identified previously by Mosjov as an incretin — directly stimulated cyclic AMP formation, insulin secretion, and insulin gene expression; notably, it did so only when glucose levels were elevated. In 1987 he returned to Toronto, taking on the position of assistant professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and working as a staff doctor.

Early in his career, Drucker discovered that hormones in the gut play important roles in the onset and development of Type 2 diabetes. Drucker, together with colleagues at Tufts Universities, filed multiple patents describing the utility of targeting the DPP-4 enzyme, and published studied demonstrating that genetic or chemical inactivation of DPP-4 prevented degradation of GLP-1 and GIP, supporting the development of DPP-4 inhibitors for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Collectively, the body of work from multiple investigators and companies led to the development of two leading classes of diabetes medications: GLP-1 receptor agonists and DPP4 inhibitors.

In 1996, Drucker was one of several investigators who demonstrated that GLP-1 reduced food intake in preclinical studies. Notably, the experiments in the Drucker lab demonstrated that this action of GLP-1 in the brain required the functional canonical GLP-1 receptor. In 1996, he also discovered the effects the first biological actions for GLP-2, demonstrating that GLP-2 augmented crypt cell proliferation and expansion of the mucosal epithelium in the small bowel of mice and rats. He subsequently identified and characterized a DPP-4-resistant molecule, teduglutide, that was ultimately developed and approved for the treatment of short bowel syndrome in adults and children, a disorder in which fluids are poorly absorbed after resection of the small intestine.

Drucker joined the staff of the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital in 2006. In 2008 he conducted studies aimed at the development and testing of long-acting version of the diabetes medication exenatide. He later studied the long-term effects of related weight-loss medicines on bowel health. Drucker has also played key roles in the identification of the cardioprotective mechanisms of GLP-1 action, and has identified multiple mechanisms linking GLP-1 to the reduction of inflammation.

He is a Canada Research Chair at the University of Toronto.

Awards and honours
Drucker has received many national and international awards in recognition of his research accomplishments revealing the mechanisms of action and therapeutic potential of enteroendocrine hormones. These include the Prix Galien Canada for outstanding academic research (2008), the Donald F. Steiner Award for Outstanding Diabetes Research from the University of Chicago (2007), the Clinical Investigator Award from the Endocrine Society (2009), the Claude Bernard Prize from the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (2012), the Oon International Award and Lecture from the University of Cambridge (2014), the Banting Medal for Scientific Achievement from the American Diabetes Association (2014) the Manpei Suzuki Foundation International Prize for Diabetes (2014), and the Harold Hamm International Prize for Biomedical Research in Diabetes (2019). In 2021 he was awarded the Canada Gairdner International Award. In 2023, he received the Wolf Prize in Medicine and the VinFuture Prize. In 2024 he was awarded the Princess of Asturias Awards for Technical and Scientific Research.

Drucker was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2015. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2015. and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2023.