Today's Oklahoma research may lead to skinny pills in tomorrow's pharmacy

Research that produced skinny mice conceivably could lead to tomorrow's skinny pill for humans, an Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation scientist says.

Scientist Lorin Olson added a mutant gene to laboratory mice with the expectation the cells would grow out of control and develop cancer. They didn't. But far more exciting was another thing the immature cells failed to do, he said. They did not turn into fat cells.

“Could this be real? What's really going on here?” Olson said he asked himself.
He watched those skinny mice closely.

“I saw that the mice weren't gaining weight and developing fat. But it could have been a lot of things,” he said...