Why do you think your paper is highly cited?

This paper is highly cited because it represented a discovery of a newly described molecule secreted by fat cells and regulated by antidiabeticdrugs. Thus it has relevance to obesity and diabetes, two foci of tremendous interest to biomedical researchers and the public because of the impact of these diseases on our society. Much more work needs to be done, but the fact that this opens up a new area of investigation probably accounts for the high citation rate.

  Does it describe a new discovery or new methodology that's useful to others?

This was a new discovery.

  Could you summarize the significance of your paper in layman's terms?

There is little question that obesity predisposes to type 2 diabetes, but the underlying explanation is not certain. The excess of fat cells somehow makes the whole body resistant to the action of insulin. Fat cells have recently been realized to be like endocrine organs, in that they produce substances that act at a distance to regulate metabolism. These include fatty acids, as well as proteins such as the hormone leptin that regulates feeding and metabolism. Our paper described a novel mouse protein secreted into the bloodstream only from fat cells. We called it "resistin" because our evidence was consistent with its being one of the fat cell factors related to resistance to insulin. If it proves to be a major contributor to insulin resistance in human as well as mouse, then it might be a target for future therapies for type 2 diabetes. Much more work needs to be done.