Frederick Banting and Fred Possmayer, PhD’65, have been named in the top-five favourite game-changing Ontario research discoveries, as voted on by the public.
In 1921, Frederick Banting, who taught at Western at the time, came up with the idea of extracting insulin from the pancreas. He worked with Charles Best, J.J.R. Macleod and J.B. Collip in a lab at the University of Toronto to obtain insulin in a form consistently effective for treating diabetes. Banting and Macleod received the 1923 Nobel Prize for their efforts.
In 1981, Fred Possmayer, who recently received a 2015 Alumni of Distinction Award, developed a solution for premature babies who suffered from respiratory distress.
The contest ran from April to October and more than 4,000 votes were collected. Visit the Research Matters website to view the full list of game-changing discoveries.