Celebrating World Diabetes Day... by remembering Dr. Frederick Banting:
November 14th is World Diabetes Day, and the birthday of a great figure in the history of diabetes research. Dr. Frederick Banting is recognized as being the first to successfully extract insulin from animal sources and use it to treat diabetes in humans. Others before him had discovered the insulin protein, and had tried to treat diabetes patients by feeding them pancreatic tissue, but without success. The insulin protein would break down because of exposure to other pancreatic enzymes in the process.
Dr. Banting was originally from Alliston, Ontario. It was while reading articles and teaching lectures at University of Toronto in the 1920s that he developed his ideas about how to successfully extract the active insulin based on previous research about procedures to turn on and off the different types of cells in the pancreas. He and Dr. Charles Best worked together and were successful. Insulin was first extracted from dogs, pork, and beef until the late 20th centurywhen it was replaced with genetically engineered bacteria.
Dr. Banting set up a private practice in Toronto to treat patients with diabetes in the spring of 1922. He treated Elizabeth Hughes Gossett, the daughter of then US Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1923. In February of 1941, he died while flying a Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra. He died from his injuries the next day while en route to England at the age of 49.
Thanks Bonnie! For further reading, this information and more can be found at: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1923/banting-bio.html
