Charles Best collaborated with frederick g. banting in identifying insulin as a diabetes-stabilizing substance. This discovery radically transformed the lives of diabetics, extending their life expectancy and improving their quality of life significantly. Best also conducted important research on choline, identifying its ability to reduce fat accumulation in the liver, as well as promoting the use of heparin as an anticoagulant, and the use of histaminase as an antiallergen.
Charles Herbert Best was born on February 27, 1899, in West Pembroke, Maine, a border town straddling New Brunswick, Canada. Both his mother, Luella Fisher, and his father, the doctor Herbert Huestes Best, who practiced on both sides of the border, originally hailed from Nova Scotia. World War I interrupted Best’s liberal arts study at the University of Toronto, as he served as a sergeant in the Canadian Tank Corps (qualifying him for Canadian citizenship). Upon his return to the university, Best financed his premed course of study by playing baseball professionally.
In 1921, J. J. R. Macleod, Best’s physiology professor, sponsored Frederick Banting’s experiments on pancreatic extracts as diabetes regulators. To determine which of two students would serve as Banting’s assistant, Macleod flipped a coin—Best won the coin toss. On May 17, 1921, the same day Best finished the examinations for his bachelor of arts degree in physiology and biochemistry (which he earned with honors), he commenced on experiments as Banting’s assistant. This line of research resonated with Best, as he had lost his paternal aunt (who lived with his family) to diabetes only three years earlier.
Following up on the 30-year-old discovery by Oscar von Mering and Joseph Minkowski that dogs deprived of their pancreases developed diabetes, Banting conceived of an experiment to induce atrophy in the pancreas of a dog, from which to prepare an extract for injection into a pancreas-deficient, diabetic dog. Banting hypothesized that secretions from the pancreatic islets of Langerhans, devoid of the digestive enzyme trypsin that destroyed the stabilizing effects of the pancreas on blood-sugar levels, would counteract diabetes. After overcoming obstacles, the pair of researchers removed one dog’s atrophied pancreas, chopped it up, ground it in a cold mortar, mixed it with saltwater, filtered it through cheesecloth, then injected this extract into the diabetic dog. The dog’s blood-sugar level dropped from 0.2 to 0.12, representing a qualified success.
In September, Macleod returned from his summer vacation to suggest ways to improve the experiment; he also hired biochemist J. B. Collip to purify the extract chemically. Best and Banting published their initial results in an article entitled "The Internal Secretion of the Pancreas" in the February 1922 edition of the Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine. The month before, Best and Banting had injected Collip’s purified extract into themselves to test for side effects; finding none, they injected this insulin (Latinate for "island," after the islets of Langerhans) into Leonard Thompson, a 14-year-old diabetic degenerating toward certain death. The boy’s health improved, and he lived another 13 years, dying in 1935 not of diabetes but of pneumonia contracted after a motorcycle accident.
Best continued to work toward his master of arts degree, which he received in 1922. At the same time, recognition of the profound significance of Best and Banting’s discovery showered upon the scientists, as they essentially extended the life span of diabetics while also allowing them to live more normal lives. In 1923, while Best was delivering an address to Harvard medical students, word arrived of that year’s Nobel Prize winners in physiology or medicine: the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences granted the prestigious award to Banting and Macleod. Soon thereafter, a telegram arrived from Banting, who expressed fury that Best had been overlooked and promised to share not only the credit but also his prize money equally with Best. Macleod, who also considered the accomplishment collaborative, shared his prize money with Collip. In 1924, Best married Margaret Mahon, a historian and botanist, and the couple eventually had two sons.
In 1925, the University of Toronto granted Best his medical degree, as well as the Ellen Mickle Fellowship, awarded to the graduate with the highest standing in the medical course. The next year, he traveled to England for two years of postgraduate research under Sir Henry Dale, earning his doctorate from the University of London in 1928. While there, Best discovered the antiallergic enzyme histaminase.
In 1927, Best returned to the University of Toronto to take up the directorship of the department of physiological hygiene. Two years later, in 1929, when Macleod retired, Best assumed the chairmanship of the physiology department as well. Over the next decade, Best discovered the "lipotropic" function of choline, or this component of lecithin’s ability to prevent fat accumulation in the liver. He also investigated the anticoagulating effects of heparin and organized Canadian efforts to supply dried blood serum to Allied wounded in World War II. In 1941, the Canadian Navy appointed him director of its medical research unit.
That year, when Banting died in a plane crash in Newfoundland, Best assumed the directorship of the department of medical research that the University of Toronto named after this pair of scientists in the wake of their landmark discovery of insulin, a post he retained for the remainder of his career. From 1948 through 1949, he presided over the American Diabetes Foundation; thereafter, he remained honorary president of this organization as well as the International Diabetes Foundation. In 1953, the International Union of Physiological Sciences named him its first president. That same year, the University of Toronto named a new medical research building the Best Institute.
Best retired in 1965, and in the next years, a group of his friends purchased and donated his parents’ Maine house to the American Diabetes Association for use as a museum. Best died at Toronto General Hospital on March 31, 1978, several days after he ruptured an abdominal blood vessel upon hearing of his son’s fatal heart attack.
