Banting biography

In the early 1920s Frederick Banting and Charles Best discovered insulin under the directorship of John Macleod at the University of Toronto. With the help of James Collip, insulin was purified, making it available for the successful treatment of diabetes. Banting and Macleod earned a Nobel Prize for their work in 1923.

At the turn of the 20th century, a strict low-calorie, no-carbohydrate diet was the only effective treatment for diabetes. But this method, with food intake sometimes as low as 500 calories per day, had its consequences, as slow starvation, like diabetes, drained patients of their strength and energy, leaving them semi-invalids. The diet treatment also required an inordinate amount of willpower on the part of the patient, very few of whom were able to maintain low-calorie diets over the long term.

In 1921 researchers at the University of Toronto began a series of experiments that would ultimately lead to the isolation and commercial production of insulin—a pancrea

•

Frederick Banting

Canadian medical scientist and doctor (1891–1941)

Sir Frederick Grant Banting (November 14, 1891 – February 21, 1941) was a Canadian pharmacologist, orthopedist, and field surgeon.^[3] For his co-discovery of insulin and its therapeutic potential, Banting was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or medicin with John Macleod.^[4]

Banting and his lärling, Charles Best, isolated insulin at the University of Toronto in the lab of Scottish physiologist John Macleod.^[5] When he and Macleod received the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or medicin, Banting shared the honours and award money with Best. That same year, the government of Canada granted Banting a lifetime annuity to continue his work.^[6] Frederick Banting, who received the Nobel Prize at age 32, fryst vatten the youngest Nobel laureate for Physiology/Medicine.^[7]

Early life

[edit]

Banting was born on November 14, 1891, in his family's farmhouse in Essa, O

•

The Discovery and Early Development of Insulin

Born on a farm near Alliston, Ontario on 14 November 1891, Frederick Grant Banting was the fourth and youngest son of William Thompson Banting and Margaret (Grant) Banting's five children[1]. Fred Banting was an average student, described as a hard-working, shy, and serious child by local schoolteachers. His grades were sufficient to earn admission at the University of Toronto. In 1910 he enrolled in the general arts course at Victoria College, with tentative plans to pursue a degree in the Methodist ministry.

This plan, perhaps more a reflection of his parent's desires than his own, did not materialize and Banting left Victoria College before completing his first year. In the fall of 1912, Banting re-entered the University of Toronto, this time enrolling in the Faculty of Medicine with a specialty in surgery.

Upon declaration of war on 4 August 1914, Fred Banting attempted to enlist in the Canadian Army the following day. Citing hi