How 1 Protein Molecule Saved 537 Million Lives From Diabetes

Indexed: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Did you know that before 1922, diabetes was a guaranteed death sentence?

[00:00:05]14-year-old Leonard Thompson was dying in a Toronto hospital, weighing just 65 [music] lb. His body couldn't process sugar, forcing him to survive on only 450 [music] calories a day while slowly starving. Then doctors Frederick Banting and Charles Best tried something desperate. They injected Leonard with an experimental extract from cow pancreases. The process was incredibly complex. [music] They used alcohol extraction and crystallization techniques to purify this mysterious substance we now call insulin. Here's the mind-blowing chemistry part. [music] Insulin is a protein hormone made of 51 amino acids arranged in a specific [music] chain. Without it, glucose molecules can't enter your cells, leaving them to starve while sugar floods your bloodstream. [music] The extraction was a nightmare. They needed 23 cow pancreases just [music] to treat one patient, but it worked. Leonard's blood sugar normalized within hours, and he lived [music] 14 more years. Today, synthetic insulin saves 537 million diabetics worldwide. One protein molecule literally transformed medicine forever. Reference: Banting, Best, Collip, and Macleod's original insulin research, 1921 to 1922, University of Toronto. Want more incredible chemical discoveries?

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