Paulescu's pancreine (antidiabetic pancreatic extract)
Pancreína de Paulescu (extracto pancreático antidiabético)
- Date
- 1921 · confidence high
- Place
- Bucharest, Romania
- Credited to
- Nicolae Paulescu
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
An aqueous extract of bovine pancreas that, injected into diabetic dogs, lowered blood glucose. Paulescu published it in 1921, months before the Toronto tests, and patented it in Romania in 1922.
Pancreine was an impure extract and never came into use as a treatment; the 1923 Nobel Prize went to Banting and Macleod. Paulescu was a genuine precursor, but his priority over the Toronto team is debated by historians.
What it led to
- a Romanian priority claim against Toronto's insulin
- historiographical debate on the 1923 Nobel Prize
- studies of endocrine pancreas physiology