Sir Frederick Banting

The ��Ƶ will co-host a public celebration this spring on the impact of insulin, one of several Insulin100 events that will mark the centenary year of a discovery that has saved the lives of millions of people.

On April 14, 100 Years of Insulin: Celebrating Its Impact on Our Lives will feature researchers sharing developments in diabetes care and people with diabetes who are patient partners with Diabetes Action Canada.

Bruce Perkins, a diabetes researcher who lives with type 1 diabetes, will speak about the rapid evolution of treatments, including insulin pumps, continuous glucose monitors, islet transplants and stem cells.

“It is humbling to realize what an extraordinary thing this discovery was 100 years ago, and that we’re so fortunate to be able to celebrate it in its fullest,” said Perkins, a professor in U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine and director of the Leadership Sinai Diabetes Centre at Sinai Health. “The history really motivates me. It was a simple discovery with so much impact.”

Diabetes Action Canada will present the event in collaboration with the Banting & Best Diabetes Centre (BBDC) at U of T and the Temerty Faculty of Medicine’s department of medicine. The Division of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation at U of T will also support the event along with Diabetes Canada and the JDRF Canada, a non-profit focused on type 1 diabetes research and advocacy.

Grant Maltman, curator at the Banting House National Historic Site of Canada, will recount Frederick Banting’s middle-of-the-night moment that changed history. He will also unveil a Canada Post stamp commemorating the 100th anniversary of the discovery.

Alice Cheng, an associate professor in Temerty Medicine’s department of medicine and an endocrinologist at Trillium Health Partners and Unity Health Toronto, will co-host a panel on diabetes treatments.

“It’s exciting to learn from the past in terms of understanding the history of the discovery, and then learn about what’s happening now and what might happen in the future,” Cheng said. “It is a celebration of the achievement, but also meant to further inspire everyone to continue this work so things keep getting better. It’s a very proud moment.”

People living with diabetes will be front and centre at the event. They include:

Mike Alexander, an Anishinaabe artist and athlete who has struggled with depression and addiction. He is a Sixties Scoop survivor and recently became a member of Diabetes Action Canada’s Indigenous Patient Circle.
Chloe Pow, who was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of four. She has become an advocate for people living with diabetes and, together with her father Conrad Pow, provides volunteer peer-support for other children who have been recently diagnosed.
Jen Hanson, the executive director of the non-profit Connected in Motion. She has lived with type 1 diabetes for more than 30 years and will share ways to lead an active and healthy life.

As well, researchers from across Canada will explain how people living with diabetes have begun playing an active and vital role in research studies.

“When we started to explore how to celebrate this milestone, we knew that people living with diabetes needed to be at the heart of it,” said Gary Lewis, director of the BBDC and scientific co-lead for Diabetes Action Canada.

“We are so thrilled to have an array of speakers who will be sharing their experiences in a way that will educate and inspire,” said Lewis, who is a professor in the department of medicine in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

“Our greatest hope is that a cure will happen within the next 100 years, but for now we want to show our appreciation for this life-saving discovery.”

Banting painting of lab where insulin was discovered sells for 10 times more than expected

noreen.rasbach — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 20:21:35 +0000

Banting painting of lab where insulin was discovered sells for 10 times more than expected

noreen.rasbach Thu, 11/22/2018 - 15:21

Cutline

U of T had hoped to purchase the painting sold at auction Wednesday night, but a determined buyer paid $313,250 for the artwork (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Topic

Research & Innovation

Sir Frederick Banting

Stem Cells

Subheadline

Heffel Fine Art Auction House pledges its $53,250 commission to diabetes research at U of T

Sir Frederick Banting’s only known painting of the lab where he discovered insulin was sold at auction Wednesday for ten times its expected value. And fittingly, a portion of the sale price will go toward funding advances in diabetes research at the ��Ƶ – just down the street from where the world-changing discovery was made almost a century ago.

Banting created the painting, called simply The Lab, in 1925. Although an accomplished painter of landscapes, he rarely chose his scientific work as a subject.

Twenty bidders competed for the historic work, including U of T, but a determined mystery buyer outbid the university in the end, paying $313,250 for the artwork over the telephone. To honour the painting’s subject and Banting’s legacy, Heffel Fine Art Auction House has pledged its commission of $53,250 to diabetes research at U of T.

“It is a privilege to be able to make this donation to the Banting & Best Diabetes Centre,” said Heffel’s Rebecca Rykiss. “At our auction previews across the country, we heard from countless enthusiasts, collectors and many affected by the disease just how meaningful this painting is. It’s not often that we have such a historically important work consigned to us and we are thrilled to honour the Nobel Prize winning scientist and his significant artistic career in this way.”

The Lab (1925) by Frederick Banting is his only known painting of the lab where he discovered insulin (image courtesy of Heffel Fine Art Auction House)

Several philanthropists had pledged to help U of T buy the painting so that it could be part of the upcoming centennial anniversary of the discovery of insulin. But the eventual winner appeared very determined to acquire the painting, said Professor Scott Mabury, U of T’s vice-president, university operations and vice-provost, academic operations.

“We were quite disappointed,” he said. “We tried. We gave it a great effort. Still, I hope in the fullness of time this painting will find its way into the 2021 celebrations of the discovery of insulin at U of T.”

The donation will further Banting’s legacy at U of T, where diabetes researchers like Maria Cristina Nostro are using techniques nobody could have envisioned in the early 20^th century to create a goal that seems futuristic even today.

Toronto is home to robust research communities in both diabetes and stem cell research. Nostro straddles both fields in her quest to regenerate the pancreas, or at least its function. She is part of a worldwide cohort of scientists engineering stem cells to cure type 1 diabetes.

A native of Italy, Nostro was completing a post-doctoral fellowship in New York, studying stem-cell biology, when her supervisor, Professor Gordon Keller, was recruited to Toronto to lead the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine. She soon found herself in the city where both insulin and stem cells were discovered.

“Toronto is a great place to do research on diabetes and stem cells,” says Nostro (pictured left). “With the huge legacy from insulin, we have the Banting & Best Diabetes Centre that’s connecting all the scientists doing diabetes research in the city. And there’s so much going on with stem cell research. It’s a perfect match.”

People with type 1 diabetes lack pancreatic beta cells, which play the crucial role of detecting sugar in the blood and signalling for the release of insulin. In the early 2000s, diabetes researchers first began experimenting with embryonic stem cells, which can potentially be turned into the cells associated with any organ. So far, scientists have used stem cells to create “immature” beta cells, which aren’t fully functional – but become more functional when placed in an animal’s body. As a result of this success, the first human trials with stem-cell derived pancreatic cells are now being conducted.

With human trials, there will be a need for more, and better functioning, pancreatic cells. Nostro and her team have made a major contribution to the process of creating them.

“We were among the first labs to understand how to efficiently create pancreatic cells,” she says. “And we’re collaborating with other Toronto scientists to find the best way to transplant the cells, making sure they’re not destroyed by the immune system and that they’re properly nourished right away by the body so they survive.”

Nostro is optimistic about improving treatment for type 1 diabetes in her lifetime.

“We need to be better than insulin,” she says. “We need something very safe and long-lasting. The beauty of regenerative medicine in diabetes is that we don’t have to recreate the entire pancreas. In type 1 diabetes, the pancreas works fine. We need to replenish the beta cells. If we can do that, we can cure diabetes.”

Google Doodle celebrates U of T's Sir Frederick Banting and the discovery of insulin

ullahnor — Mon, 14 Nov 2016 20:38:28 +0000

Google Doodle celebrates U of T's Sir Frederick Banting and the discovery of insulin

ullahnor Mon, 11/14/2016 - 15:38

Topic

Global Lens

Insulin

Sir Frederick Banting

Charles Best

Banting and Best Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Research

Innovation

Today's Google homepage Doodle celebrates the legacy of one of U of T’s most renowned researchers Sir Frederick Banting.

The Nov. 14 Doodle commemorates World Diabetes Day and what would have been Banting's 125th birthday. Banting was a physician who along with Charles Best discovered insulin at the ��Ƶ in 1921, forever changing the way people live with diabetes. Banting was also a Canadian soldier in the First World War.

U of T Magazine published a story in 2014, detailing Banting’s experience in the war and the discovery of insulin when he returned home.

Sir Frederick Banting

Event to mark 100th anniversary of U of T's discovery of insulin and map future of diabetes care

Banting painting of lab where insulin was discovered sells for 10 times more than expected

Google Doodle celebrates U of T's Sir Frederick Banting and the discovery of insulin

Read the U of T Magazine story

Read about U of T's entrepreneurship hub named after Banting and Best

Read about insulin discovery at U of T