Frederick Banting
Canadian medical scientist and doctor (1891–1941)
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Key Takeaways
- Sir Frederick Grant Banting ( ; November 14, 1891 – February 21, 1941) was a Canadian pharmacologist, orthopedist, and field surgeon.
- Banting and his student, Charles Best, isolated insulin at the University of Toronto in the lab of Scottish physiologist John Macleod.
- That same year, the Government of Canada granted Banting a lifetime annuity to continue his work.
- Early life Banting was born on November 14, 1891, in his family's farmhouse in Essa, Ontario, two miles from nearby Alliston.
- The Bantings were a financially stable family of British and Northern Irish origin.
Sir Frederick Grant Banting (; November 14, 1891 – February 21, 1941) was a Canadian pharmacologist, orthopedist, and field surgeon. For his co-discovery of insulin and its therapeutic potential, Banting was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with John Macleod.
Banting and his student, Charles Best, isolated insulin at the University of Toronto in the lab of Scottish physiologist John Macleod. When he and Macleod received the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Banting shared the honours and award money with Best. That same year, the Government of Canada granted Banting a lifetime annuity to continue his work. He is the youngest Nobel laureate for Physiology/Medicine, at 32.
Early life
Banting was born on November 14, 1891, in his family's farmhouse in Essa, Ontario, two miles from nearby Alliston. He was the youngest of five children of William Thompson Banting, a farmer in Tecumseh, and Margaret Grant, the daughter of a mill manager. The Bantings were a financially stable family of British and Northern Irish origin. Banting's distant relative, the London-based undertaker William Banting, popularised a weight-loss diet in 1864, and the word "Banting" entered the Oxford English Dictionary as its description. His mother's relatives, the Grants, were of Scottish descent.
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