It was speculated, at the time, that the root cause of diabetes was a damaged pancreas and its inability to produce a protein hormone that was termed insulin by a Banting contemporary named Edward Sharpey-Schafer.

November 14, is world diabetes day. It is the same day that diabetes pioneer Frederick Banting was born. Before Banting’s pioneering work in the 1920s, there was no reliable treatment for people suffering from the disease.  But the  Canadian visionary’s work developing insulin to treat diabetes earned him the Nobel Prize and provided hope to millions.

Banting was born in Alliston Ontario. Despite his poor eyesight he was still accepted into the army during the first world war due to the need for doctors on the front lines. Following the end of hostilities Banting dived into passion of understanding diabetes and the pancreas.

It was speculated, at the time, that the root cause of diabetes was a damaged pancreas and its inability to produce a protein hormone that was termed insulin by a Banting contemporary named Edward Sharpey-Schafer.

In 1921, Banting was given 10 dogs by the University of Toronto to advance his ideas about finding a treatment for diabetes. The pancreas of one of the dogs was removed, resulting in the development of diabetes in the canine. Banting ground up the pancreas and used it in the daily injections he gave the animal to keep it healthy.

Then in 1922, Leonard Thompson, a 14 year-old boy became the first person to be successfully treated with insulin. Following the success with Thompson large scale quantities of insulin began to be produced. The discovery of the drug saved millions of lives and resulted in Banting being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1923. Eleven years later, Sir Frederick Banting was knighted by King George V.

When the Second World War broke out, Banting served as a liaison officer between the British and North American medical services. In 1941 while he was engaged in that capacity in 1941, at the age of 49, Banting died when his Lockheed Super Electra plane he was piloting lost power and crashed shortly after taking off from Gander Newfoundland.

Although insulin is produced by cultivating bacteria, initially pig pancreases were used up until the 1980s.