The story so far
01 Jan 1900
Insulin, the hormone associated with diabetes, has always been associated with cutting-edge technology. When Banting and Best discovered it in the early 1920s, it was the first hormone to be identified. When Sanger elucidated its primary amino acid structure in 1955 he did so by evolving techniques that are still in use. When recombinant human insulin was first manufactured using Escherischia coli (E.coli) in 1979 it was hailed as a new dawn for medical biotechnology.