[PT][EN]

Today marks the centenary of the day insulin was first isolated.

Previous investigations done in 1889 by Oskar Minkowski and Joseph Von Mering verified the vital importance of the pancreas, whose removal in animals led to the onset of diabetes and death. The existence of one or more substances produced in the pancreas whose removal would lead to diabetes was suggested. This substance was then named insulin in 1910 by Sharpey-Shafer.

But it wasn't until 1921 that Frederick Banting and Charles Best, aided by John MacLeod and James Collip, isolated insulin and applied it to a young man with diabetes, saving his life. Banting and MacLeod won the Nobel Prize in 1923, sharing it with Best and Collip.

In Portugal, it was Ernesto Roma, founder of the Associação Protetora dos Diabeticos de Portugal in 1926, who introduced insulin in our country.

This historical context was the topic of conversation between Paula Macedo, professor at NOVA Medical School and University of Aveiro as well as principal investigator at CEDOC in the MEDIR group, Metabolic Disorders, and José Filipe Raposo, clinical researcher in the same group and Clinical Director of Associação Protetora dos Diabéticos de Portugal.

You can watch this video on our YouTube channel and see how fundamental the discovery of insulin was for modern medicine and what challenges diabetes still poses: