John Macleod

John James Rickard Macleod was Chair of Physiology at the University of Toronto when Frederick Banting approached him with a proposal to extract an internal secretion from the pancreas. Recognizing the therapeutic potential, Macleod provided Banting with laboratory space, experimental animals, and student assistant Charles Best, while supplying rigorous physiological methodologies.

For the historic breakthrough, Macleod was jointly awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Banting, generously dividing his half of the monetary prize with biochemist James Collip. Macleod later returned to Scotland as Regius Professor of Physiology at the University of Aberdeen.