Sir Frederick Banting

Soldier, surgeon, and scientist Sir Frederick Banting became convinced in 1920 of the existence of a hormone known as insulin. A laboratory provided by Prof. J. J. R. Macleod of the University of Toronto enabled Banting and Charles H. Best, in 1921, to prepare an active anti-diabetic extract of pancreas, purified by Prof. J. B. Collip. This substance was first used successfully on a patient on January 23, 1922, by Drs. W. R. Campbell and A. A. Fletcher. Banting received the Nobel Prize for Medicine with Macleod in 1923 and was knighted in 1934. Born in Alliston, he died in the crash of a military aircraft in Newfoundland, on February 21, 1941.

Ontario · Canada