Throughline
Throughline
NPR
The dramatic race to discover Insulin
37 minutes Posted Oct 22, 2026 at 7:05 am.
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Looksmaxxing, weight loss, and muscle building have fueled a massive craze for injectable peptides. Some natural and some synthetic. These injectables have unleashed a multi-billion-dollar gray-market industry online and a high-stakes frontier for the pharmaceutical industry. Today, we reach back to the quest to manufacture the first peptide-based medicine: Insulin.

Guests:

Alison Li, historian of science and medicine, author of J. B. Collip and the Development of Medical Research in Canada: Extracts and Enterprise

Grant Maltman, curator of Banting House National Historic Site

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