Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Jeffrey Friedman, MD, PhD, is a molecular geneticist at New York City's Rockefeller University. His discovery of the hormone leptin and its role in regulating body weight has had a major role in the area of human obesity. Friedman was born in Orlando, Florida in 1954, and grew up in North Woodmere, New York, graduating from Hewlett High School in the Class of 1971. He attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and, in 1977, received his medical degree from Albany Medical College of Union University in Albany, NY.