Nicolae Paulescu

Nicolae Constantin Paulescu (October 30, 1869 – July 17, 1931) was a Romanian physiologist, professor of medicine, and politician, the discoverer of pancreine (later called insulin). The "pancreine" was a crude extract of bovine pancreas in salted water, after which some impurites were removed with hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide.

In 1916, he succeeded in developing an aqueous pancreatic extract which, when injected into a diabetic dog, proved to have a normalizing effect on blood sugar levels. After a gap during World War I, he resumed his research.

From April 24 to June 23, 1921, Paulescu published four papers at the Romanian Section of the Society of Biology in Paris: The effect of the pancreatic extract injected into a diabetic animal by way of the blood, The influence of the time elapsed from the intravenous pancreatic injection into a diabetic animal, The effect of the pancreatic extract injected into a normal animal by way of the blood.

Paulescu secured the patent rights for his method of manufacturing pancreine on April 10, 1922 (patent no. 6254) from the Romanian Ministry of Industry and Trade.

In February 1922, doctor Frederick Grant Banting and biochemist John James Rickard Macleod from the University of Toronto, Canada, published their paper on the successful use of a different, alcohol based pancreatic extract for normalizing blood sugar (glucose) levels (glycemia) in a human patient, a young boy.

While Paulescu had patented his technique in Romania, no clinical use resulted from his work, as his saline extract could not be used on humans. The work published by Banting, Best, Collip and McLeod represented the injection of purified insulin extract. Not surprisingly, Banting and Macleod received the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of insulin treatment.

1. Paulescu developed an aqueous pancreatic extract which normalized the blood sugar levels in a diabetic dog in

a)       1916

b)       1921

c)       1910

2. Pancreine is a

a) hormone

b) disease

c) cell

3. Insulin is a hormone that:

a)       Normalizes the blood sugar levels

b)       Creates diabetes

c)       Cures cancer

4. Paulescu secured the patent rights for his method of manufacturing pancreine in:

a)       1916

b)       1922

c)       1921

By Prof. Molcalut Georgeta - Florentina