| Popis: |
Early in my career, my graduate mentor, the late Howard S. Tager, told me that you know you are getting old when you begin framing your research talks in the context of scientific history. As I have aged (slowly), this certainly rings true for me now. Over the years, as I included more historical references in my scientific talks, I have often reflected on some important differences in the ways science is conducted today versus the past. One clear difference is that there is more multiple ( 3) author papers published these days. The average number of authors per paper has risen from 1.5 in 1950 to more than 5 today (1). In our journal Molecular Endocrinology, the average number of authors per paper today is more than 6 (2). This increase in author numbers can be partially explained by the multitude of disparate techniques used in papers today that require the collaboration of many individuals. Our papers now are more complex, use many different types of experiments to test the hypotheses posited, and the conclusions are more nuanced with respect to molecular functions of proteins and nucleic acids. Nevertheless, reading some of the older scientific literature has taught me lessons that I think are valuable to any scientist today. So, let me reflect here upon one aspect of scientific history that has helped to shape the kind of scientist and diabetologist I have become. Recently, at the Annual Diabetes Symposium in Indianapolis, I had the opportunity to review and present a short history of insulin research and how the scientists who studied this one small peptide hormone transformed our understanding of molecular endocrinology. In the nearly 100 years that have elapsed since the discovery of insulin by Banting and Best, the discoveries surrounding the insulin molecule have represented “firsts” or “among firsts:” insulin was the first protein to be sequenced, the first protein to be chemically synthesized, the first protein whose concentrations were determined by RIA, among the first proteins whose crystal structure was solved, and the list goes on. Two scientists whom I admired greatly for their pioneering work during this heydey of insulinrelated discoveries, and whom I have cited in many of my research talks, died in the last year: Donald F. Steiner and Ronald E. Chance. In 1967 at the University of Chicago, Donald Steiner discovered that the 2-chain insulin molecule is synthesized as a larger, single chain precursor that he termed “proinsulin” (3, 4). His studies used pulse-chase labeling experiments followed by size-exclusion chromatography and collectively showed the incorporation of label into a peptide larger than insulin during short periods of pulse and later converted to insulin during longer periods of chase. The following year in 1968 at the Lilly Research Laboratories in Indianapolis, where the identical precursor was previously identified as a “minor component” of crystalline porcine insulin prep |
