Question 1

True or false: The discoverers of insulin sold the patent to a pharmaceutical company for one dollar.

Accepted Answer

True. Banting, Best, and Collip sold the insulin patent to the University of Toronto for $1 each, hoping to keep it affordable and prevent monopolization.

Question 2

True or false: The discovery of insulin immediately cured diabetes for all patients who received it.

Accepted Answer

False. Insulin is a life-saving treatment, not a cure. Patients must manage their blood sugar levels with insulin injections for life, and complications can still occur.

Question 3

True or false: Insulin was originally extracted from the pancreas of dogs and later from pigs and cows.

Accepted Answer

True. Banting and Best used dogs for early experiments. Animal insulin from pigs and cows was used for decades until human insulin was genetically engineered in the 1970s.

Question 4

True or false: The Nobel Prize for insulin was awarded to Banting and Macleod, but not to Best or Collip.

Accepted Answer

True. The 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Banting and Macleod. Banting shared his prize money with Best, and Macleod shared with Collip, but they weren't official laureates.

Question 5

True or false: Insulin was first discovered in Germany by a scientist named Oskar Minkowski.

Accepted Answer

False. Minkowski discovered the role of the pancreas in diabetes in 1889, but insulin itself was isolated by Banting, Best, Macleod, and Collip in Toronto in 1921–1922.

Question 6

True or false: The first patient injected with insulin was a 14-year-old boy who died shortly after.

Accepted Answer

True. Leonard Thompson, a 14-year-old diabetic, received the first insulin injection in 1922. The initial dose was impure and caused an allergic reaction, but a refined dose later saved him.

Question 7

True or false: Insulin was discovered by a team including a young surgeon who had no formal training in research.

Accepted Answer

True. Frederick Banting, a surgeon with no research background, convinced Professor Macleod to let him work on isolating insulin, leading to the Nobel Prize.

Question 8

True or false: Before insulin, doctors treated diabetes by feeding patients large amounts of sugar.

Accepted Answer

True. Before insulin, starvation diets were common, but some physicians mistakenly tried high-sugar diets, which only worsened the disease and hastened death.

The Discovery of Insulin Trivia Questions