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Von Mering disproved Bernard's liver theory when he found that removing the pancreas caused diabetes.
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Fredrick Banting and Charles Best discovered insulin by showing that removing the pancreas from dogs made them diabetic. Then they went a took fluid from healthy dogs, injected it into the diabetic dogs and restored them to normalcy - for as long as they had the extract.
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The very first patient to receive insulin was a 14 year old boy with type 1 diabetes, named Leonard Thompson. Previously, patients would be put on starvation diets and only have months to live, but with the first treatment of insulin, Leonard lived another 13 years before he developed pneumonia.
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Insulin was produced commercially and used in most western countries.
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J.J. Abels discovered a way to crystallize insulin. The crystalline form allowed researchers to study its structure with a technique called x-ray crystallography and approximate its three-dimensional shape.
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Hans Christian Hagedom discovered that the action of insulin can be prolonged with the addition of protamine.
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Solomon Berson and Rosalind Yalow developed the immunoassay technique. Transforming endocrinology, the technique of immunoassay far surpassed the previous bioassay, and allows minute concentrations of insulin to be consistently measured.
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Dorothy Hodgkins determined the three-dimensional structure of insulin.
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Through recombinant technology, insulin was the first protein to be produced by biotechnology.
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Dr. Weiss described the structure of insulin in solution, and confirmed his theory on cell receptor binding with insulin.
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The pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly, markets the analogue insulin lispro under the trade name Humalog. This genetically modified form of insulin has an altered amino acid sequence to change how the insulin is absorbed, distributed, metabolised, and excreted.
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Dr. Weiss continues on his discovery of an insulin receptor into discovering the primary hormone-binding site of insulin receptors.
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Thermalin prepares for the first clinical trial of the first highly-concentrated, rapid-acting insulin. Now, many people with diabetes use pumps instead of regular shots, and they are able to live a normal, healthy life without much fear of being subject to this disease.
