100 years of insulin in 15 minutes
Download MP3A hundred years ago, insulin was scraped from pig pancreases. Today, it’s made by bacteria in giant tanks. In the second part of a mini series on proteins, drug development and AI, Saloni tells the story of how insulin went from a crude animal extract to the first genetically-engineered drug, kickstarting the biotech industry along the way.
Hard Drugs is a new podcast from Works in Progress and Open Philanthropy about medical innovation presented by Saloni Dattani and Jacob Trefethen.
Saloni’s substack newsletter: https://www.scientificdiscovery.dev/
Books:
- Genentech: The beginnings of biotech by Sally Smith Hughes
Articles:
- FDA (2007). Celebrating a Milestone: FDA's Approval of First Genetically-Engineered Product https://fda.report/media/110447/Celebrating-a-Milestone--FDA%27s-Approval-of-the-First-Genetircally-Engineered-Product.pdf
- Genentech (2016). Cloning Insulin https://www.gene.com/stories/cloning-insulin
- Arthur Riggs (2020). Making, Cloning, and the Expression of Human Insulin Genes in Bacteria: The Path to Humulin https://academic.oup.com/edrv/article/42/3/374/6042201
Podcasts:
- Novo Nordisk (Ozempic) by the Acquired podcast https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/novo-nordisk-ozempic
Acknowledgements:
- Aria Babu, editor at Works in Progress
- Adrian Bradley, on-site producer
- Anna Magpie, fact-checking
- Abhishaike Mahajan, cover art
- Atalanta Arden-Miller, art direction
- David Hackett, composer
Works in Progress & Open Philanthropy
