History of Insulin Timeline

2021 marks the 100th anniversary of Banting, Best and Macleod’s discovery of insulin. Many scientists contributed to the scientific understanding that enabled this important medical advancement. To honor their collective achieve- ments, journey through the timeline leading to the discovery of insulin.

Porcine insulin’s amino acid sequence and 3D structure

Pancreatic Islets of Langerhans The insulin analog, aspart 1894 1969 2016 552 BC Sir Edward Albert Sharpey- September 1921 January 1922 Fall 1923 Dr. Dorothy Hodgkin’s 1982 Medtronic's MiniMed First known 1869 Schäfer suggests pancreatic 1913 Banting’s team sees The first successful Banting and Macleod team uses X-ray Eli Lilly sells the first 2000 670G System is the medical Paul Langerhans islets might drive the effects Sir Edward Albert Sharpey- first signs of success injection of the Banting receive the Nobel Prize in crystallography to commercially available The insulin analog first artificial pancreas description discovers pancreatic of the pancreas on blood Schäfer theorizes the from experiments on team’s purified pancreatic or Medicine determine the 3D biosynthetic human aspart is approved system approved by of diabetes islets of Langerhans sugar control existence of insuline diabetic dogs extract for discovering insulin structure of insulin insulin, Humulin by the US FDA the US FDA 2021

129–199 AD 1889 1904 May 1921 Late 1921 May 1922 1936 1978 1996 2004 2019 Aretaeus of Oskar Minkowski and William Bayliss and Fredrick Banting, James Bertram Collip Macleod introduces Novo Nordisk The first genetically The first short-acting The insulin FDA authorizes a Cappadocia coins Josef von Mehring coin John Macleod, joins Banting’s team the term insulin to Pharmaceuticals, Inc. engineered, synthetic insulin analog, Lispro, analog glulisine second artificial the term diabetes discover that dogs with the term and Charles Best to purify pancreatic the scientific and introduces the first “human” insulin is is approved by the is approved by pancreas system, a removed pancreas while working on begin experiments extracts medical communities slower-acting insulin produced in E.coli US FDA the US FDA The Control-Q, became fatally diabetic by Tandem Diabetes Care

Vials of insulin

Aretaeus of Cappadocia, ancient Greek physician

Chemical structure of insulin Copyright © 2021 by ALPCO. All rights reserved. This material or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of ALPCO.