Sir Frederick Banting - Nobel Laureate

Sir Frederick Grant Banting (November 14, 1891 – February 21, 1941) was a Canadian medical scientist, doctor. He won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1923 for discovering insulin with Dr. Charles Best. Even though Best was not included in the Nobel Prize, he shared the prize money with Best. Banting also received a lifetime annuity to work on research from the Canadian government. He was knighted by King George the V in 1934. Banting married Marion Robertson in 1924; they had one child, William (b. 1928). This marriage ended in a divorce in 1932, and in 1937 Banting married Henrietta Ball. Banting also loved to paint and participated in a painting adventure to the Arctic Circle


Banting had become deeply interested in diabetes after reading an article in a medical paper on the pancreas. It indicated that diabetes was caused by lack of a protein hormone secreted by the Islets of Langerhans in the pancreas. Schafter, one of the authors had given the name insulin to this hormone, and it was supposed that insulin controls the metabolism of sugar, so that lack of it results in the accumulation of sugar in the blood and the excretion of the excess of sugar in the urine. Attempts to supply the missing insulin by feeding patients with fresh pancreas, or extracts of it, had failed, presumably because the protein insulin in these had been destroyed by the proteolytic enzyme of the pancreas. The problem, therefore, was how to extract insulin from the pancreas before it had been thus destroyed. Another researcher Moses Baron pointed out that when the pancreatic duct was experimentally closed by ligatures the cells of the pancreas which secrete trypsin degenerate, but that the Islets of Langerhans remain intact. This suggested to Banting the idea that ligation of the pancreatic duct would, by destroying the cells which secrete trypsin, avoid the destruction of the insulin, so that, after sufficient time had been allowed for the degeneration of the trypsin-secreting cells, insulin might be extracted from the intact Islets of Langerhans. J.J.R, MacLeod, Professor of Physiology at the University of Toronto provided lab space and encouragement. A medical student, Charles Best was appointed to be Dr. Banting’s assistant and together they discovered insulin.

In 1922 Banting had been appointed Senior Demonstrator in Medicine at the University of Toronto, and in 1923 he was elected to the Banting and Best Chair of Medical Research, which had been endowed by the Legislature of the Province of Ontario. He was also appointed Honorary Consulting Physician to the Toronto General Hospital, the Hospital for Sick Children, and the Toronto Western Hospital. In the Banting and Best Institute, Banting dealt with the problems of silicosis, cancer, the mechanism of drowning and how to counteract it. During the Second World War he became greatly interested in problems connected with flying (such as blackout).

In addition to his medical degree, Banting also obtained, in 1923, the LL.D. degree (Queens) and the D.Sc. degree (Toronto). Prior to the award of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1923, which he shared with Macleod, he received the Reeve Prize of the University of Toronto (1922). In 1923, the Canadian Parliament granted him a Life Annuity of $7,500. In 1928 Banting gave the Cameron Lecture in Edinburgh. He was appointed member of numerous medical academies and societies in his country and abroad, including the British and American Physiological Societies, and the American Pharmacological Society.