Research on mice that ‘sweat out’ fat wins STAT Madness for University of Pennsylvania

Obese mice not only lost weight, they became “grease balls”: “They’re so greasy, they slip out of your hands,” said senior author Taku Kambayashi of the University of Pennsylvania.

Pizza rat, watch out: Pizza-faced mice are on their way to stealing your crown. A team of University of Pennsylvania medical school researchers that discovered an unlikely potential weight loss solution — “sweating out” fat through the skin as sebum — have won the STAT Madness popular vote. The annual bracket-style competition that highlights some of the most notable biomedical research from the past year concluded Sunday after fierce competition among the 64 entrants, with over 350,000 votes cast in total.

The Penn researchers garnered 71% of the vote in the final round against a University of California, Davis, team. It’s a clean sweep for the Penn team, which was also the crowd favorite last week of the audience at the STAT Breakthrough Science Summit.

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