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Dr. David Harlan Celebrates 100 Years Since the Initial Purification & Use of Insulin in Diabetes Therapy with "The Noble and Often Nobel Role of Insulin-Related Research"

Date Posted: Friday, February 19, 2021

UMass Diabetes Center of Excellence co-director, David Harlan, MD, was invited to kick off the Stanford Diabetes Research Center Symposium, which celebrated the 100th anniversary of the purification and use of insulin as a life-saving treatment for diabetes. Dr. Harlan's thorough retrospective describes the important roles played by many scientists, including four Nobel laureates.

Four major themes throughout the following presentation are good ideas vs. brilliance, the role that both serendipity and persistence played, as well as unforeseen consequences of these incredible research accomplishments.    

Included in the video are clips from an interview Dr. Harlan did in 2019 with Walter Gilbert, PhD.  Dr. Gilbert's pioneering work in DNA sequencing resulted in the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.