ABSTRACT
The discovery of insulin is another example of a more medically targeted finding that has had immense clinical implications for sufferers of diabetes for nearly a century. This chapter describes how the heroes of this discovery, physician-researcher Frederick Banting, his student Charles Best, the lab’s principal investigator and experienced physiology professor John Macleod, and biochemist colleague James Collip somehow managed to collaborate long enough to make their discovery. The search for the active hormone in the “internal secretion” of the pancreas had been an active area of research in the preceding years, and although Banting’s initial hypotheses did not pan out as anticipated, this chapter details how despite the bickering among the researchers their overall determination and the right timing ultimately led to the discovery of insulin.
