Physiology Works with Canada Post on Commemorative Insulin100 Stamp
As covered by U of T News, Canada Post has issued a new commemorative stamp to mark the 100th anniversary of the discovery of insulin. The stamp was unveiled on April 14th by Grant Maltman, curator of Banting House, where Banting had a dream that inspired his goal of creating a treatment for diabetes 100 years ago. It was on July 30th, 1921 that this goal was realized, right here in the Department of Physiology.
"At the time, J. J. R. Macleod — who provided lab space, scientific oversight, and other critical resources to Banting — was Chair of the Department of Physiology, which is the role I'm in now," Dr. Scott Heximer commented. He added,"That history is important to highlight. It reminds us that we, as leaders in a scientific community, have a responsibility to recognize the possibility of new ideas and, where possible, provide the resources and support necessary to realize them."
Highlighting that history was on Heximer's mind when he reached out to Canada Post in 2019. As Heximer told U of T News, “When we got into this, we didn’t realize everything that went into making a stamp.” Initial discussions consisted of brainstorming and information gathering, and Heximer quickly looped in Professor Patricia Brubaker.
Brubaker has been heavily involved in multiple projects around the history of insulin in the past, including the creation of an exhibit housed at the MaRS Discovery building and a recent article contextualizing the history that she co-wrote with Professor Gary Lewis for the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
“Patricia Brubaker is basically our local insulin guru from a historical perspective,” Heximer said.
Soon the department’s whole Insulin100 Steering Committee (Drs. Patricia Brubaker (Chair), Cristina Nostro, Denise Belsham, Michael Wheeler, and Scott Heximer) were sifting through and deliberating over archival documents and images, several of which they shared with Canada Post. The team was also involved in fact-checking on the project, as was Maltman. Historian Chris Rutty was also involved in sourcing materials for the image on the stamp.
Heximer said, “One of the funnier stories was the design of the cancellation image — the postal marking used to prevent a stamp’s reuse. At first we discussed using a microscope image, until we realized that Banting and Best probably didn't even have a microscope in their lab. The cancellation image ended up being a colorimeter — a standard tool they would have used to measure glucose levels in blood and urine samples in the lab. It’s just one example of the level of detail that goes into a stamp design.”
Not only is the discovery an integral part of Physiology’s history but, as Brubaker explained to U of T News, “the influence of Banting, Best, Collip and Macleod can still be felt in the Department of Physiology. For example, she says, Best was Chair of the department when Professor Emeritus Mladen Vranic was hired. Vranic, in turn, hired Brubaker.”
The Department continues to run one of the best Endocrine and Diabetes Research Platforms in the world and its trainees have gone on to become leading researchers themselves.
"We are so proud of our department's past, present, and inevitable future contributions to the mitigation of diabetes and will continue to support the realization of as many dreams of scientific discovery as we can," said Heximer.
Celebrate with us!
In honour of the "day of discovery" when Banting and Best — under MacLeod's guidance — first successfully reduced blood sugar in an animal model, the Department of Physiology will be holding a virtual celebration event on July 30th 2021. Please save the date and stay tuned for more details! Click here for more ways to celebrate with us!
