Douglas L. Coleman, a Canadian-born scientist who upset scientific dogma by discovering that genes — not willpower, eating habits or other behaviors — could cause obesity in some people, died on April 16 at his home in Lamoine, Me. He was 82.

The cause was aggressive basal cell cancer, said a spokeswoman for the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Me., where Dr. Coleman spent his entire research career.

Beginning in the 1960s, Dr. Coleman’s research showed that a blood-borne substance could curb hunger. In the 1990s, his findings led Dr. Jeffrey M. Friedman’s team at the Rockefeller University in Manhattan to identify the gene that produces the appetite suppressant leptin, which is released by fat cells.

For their work, Dr. Coleman and Dr. Friedman shared the prestigious Lasker Award for basic medical research in 2010. Their discoveries upended the conventional wisdom that fat cells are simply energy storage bins, and demonstrated that fat tissue is an endocrine organ required for normal development. Scientists have learned from their research and others’ that fat produces a variety of hormones, cytokines and other chemicals in the body’s natural weight-control system.