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On This Date: Banting and Best isolate insulin

Frederick G. Banting, a doctor living and working in London, Ont., arrived in Toronto in the spring of 1921 to meet with University of Toronto Professor of Physiology J.J.R. Macleod. He was hoping to secure some lab space to test his theories around the pancreas and regulating sugar in the bloodstream, which he felt might hold the key to the treatment of diabetes. While MacLeod was skeptical, he did agree to let Banting use his lab space while he was on holiday for the summer. He also supplied Banting with ten dogs on which to experiment, along with a medical student, Charles Best. In May, Banting and Best began their experiments, eventually producing what they called "isletin" (what we now know as insulin). They began testing this extract on the dogs starting July 27. (An image of the chart is at right.) These successful experiments would eventually lead the scientists to develop insulin, and thus change the lives of many diabetic sufferers around the world. Banting and Best were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1923.

The Fisher Library has the world's foremost collection of insulin-related research material, including the papers of both Banting and Best. Links to the finding aids of all the insulin-related archival material found at the Fisher are below. Much of this material has been gathered in an online digital exhibit, "The Discovery and Early Development of Insulin." This site documents the initial period of the discovery and development of insulin by presenting over six thousand page images reproducing original documents ranging from laboratory notebooks and charts, correspondence, writings, and published papers to photographs, awards, clippings, scrapbooks, printed ephemera and realia. Some of the material is pictured below. (Click on image for larger view.)