|
Transcription
of the audio
"In
the 1950s a British chemist Fred Sanger was working
for the medical research council at their laboratories
in Cambridge.
He
was very interested in the structure of proteins
- how the constituent building blocks of proteins,
which are called amino acids, fitted together
to make the whole protein.
He
turned his attention to insulin and he discovered
the amino acid structure of insulin. No longer
did it have to be extracted from animals, it could
be made by pharmaceutical companies and nowadays
very pure insulin is made using cell and tissue
cultures in pharmaceutical companies and its commercial
manufacture and availability has throughout the
20th century saved millions of lives."
|
Dr.
Tilli Tansey, medical historian, The Wellcome Institute,
London |
