A collaboration between researchers from Eindhoven, Essen and New York is proposing a ‘molecular glue’ as a treatment for type 2 diabetes. The glue targets the ChREBPα protein involved in processing glucose and activating insulin production.

In 2020, Luc Brunsveld’s group at Eindhoven University of Technology published a study on the interaction of small molecules with proteins outside of the cell. The group of Donald Scott, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York), was interested in applying these insights to type 2 diabetes and therefore contacted Eindhoven for a collaboration. Emira Visser, at the time a PhD student in the Brunsveld group, said: ‘This is one of my favourite projects I have worked on.’