As reported in Cell, researchers in the Flanagan lab have made key new insights into the molecular behavior of insulin. In their publication, they describe an unexpected mechanism by which insulin triggers changes to the expression of thousands of genes throughout the genome. These findings have important health implications given that insulin dysfunction can give rise to chronic diseases such as type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and insulin resistance has been implicated in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Moreover, excessive insulin signaling contributes to a variety of cancers. Read more about this exciting research here.