On Nov. 10, 2005, Stanford researchers announced they had discovered obestatin, a hormone that suppresses appetite.

The discovery offered a key to researchers developing treatments for obesity. In a nation that desperately needs to slim down – the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated 65 percent of Americans over the age of 20 are either overweight or obese – obestatin is likely to generate interest from scientists and drugmakers alike. The finding was published in Science

The research was sponsored by Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development which has certain license rights to the discovery.