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Frederick Banting met with John J.R. McLeod who thought he had the idea that glucose and metabolism had a connection.
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They were trying to find and extract the active ingredient in the pancreas.
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The pancreas' digestive juice was destroying the islets of Langerhans hormone before it was able to be isolated from it.
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Banting told McLeod his idea and he laughed at him in return. Eventually though, he was able to persuade him into giving him 10 experimental dogs and a lab assistant.
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Macleod left to go on a trip to Scotland. This is when Banting and his assistant started their trials.
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They were able to extract the insulin from the pancreas and give it to the diabetic dogs. This lowered the dogs abnormally high blood pressures. They did if for Macleod when he got back. They got similar results but the purity of insulin wasn't always the same.
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Macleod assigned James Bertram Collip to help them with the purification of the insulin to use.
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Within six weeks of the purification of the insulin they felt comfortable testing the insulin on a 14 year old boy who was dying of diabetes. The test worked as the boy's blood sugar was lowered, as well as his urine not having any sugar or signs of disease in it.
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About a month after their successful trials they published their paper on their research and findings.
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They won the Nobel Prize for their discovery and each shared some of their earnings with the researchers who helped them.
