How discovery of insulin may have been delayed at least a decade

[nir]

War endangers lives. But it can have a hidden cost, too, threatening lifesaving scientific research. That’s the message of “Discovery, Interrupted,” an investigation into the history of diabetes research that reveals a forgotten scientist and a suspended attempt to discover insulin. The article, by molecular geneticist Jeffrey Friedman, appears in the November issue of Harper’s Magazine.

 

Israel Kleiner once seemed poised to discover insulin. By 1914 — nearly a decade before insulin’s discovery by other scientists — he had done studies that indicated the pancreas might secrete something that lowered blood sugar. He seemed on the precipice of a discovery that could save millions of lives.

 

But then, Kleiner stopped his research and fell off the scientific radar. Why?

 

The question has fascinated Friedman for years, so he went in search of Kleiner and his interrupted research. What he found was a story of war, scientific personalities and research resources that raises intriguing questions about how discoveries are made.

 

“Discoveries are delicate things,” Friedman writes, and the tale he tells is just as intricate, weaving together Kleiner’s lost story with that of Frederick Banting and John MacLeod, the better-known scientists whose eventual discovery of insulin earned them a Nobel Prize.

 

Lesser known, but just as crucial to the story, is Simon Flexner, a pathologist who made a decision that put Kleiner and his groundbreaking research on the path to obscurity. You’ll need to read the article to find that out — and to consider how Flexner’s decision, and the shifting landscape of scientific research, may have derailed a brilliant scientist and robbed the world of even more important discoveries.

 

The piece is made more powerful by Friedman’s personal connection to his work. In 1994, Friedman discovered leptin, the hormone that regulates hunger and helps the body determine how much energy to expend. His lab is at Rockefeller University, the same institution where Kleiner worked.

 

Friedman’s attempt to learn more about a discovery that never happened opens up questions about the modern-day search for new breakthroughs, even as it looks back at someone science left behind.

 

Source