Insulin is my friend, but not a cure

I've been forwarded a few articles on diabetes in the past few days. There was a feature in the New York Times on the discovery of Insulin. If you don't know the history of how insulin was discovered, you should learn! It is considered to be one of the great advancements in medicine and is a fascinating adventure of making of what was perceived to be impossible into reality. It is a story of resurrecting the (nearly) dead. In all fairness, part of my fascination may come from the fact that Insulin keeps me alive on a daily basis; but still, it is a pretty cool page in the history of scientific advancement. It won a Nobel prize. This article is a good place to start learning. This book is an even better resource to learn from. The article was published because of a new exhibit opening in New York on the history of diabetes. I want to go! If anyone is in NY and goes, let me know how it is!

Another article was on an innovative design contest held at Harvard. It makes me happy to know that "out of the box" thinking is being publicly funded and gaining growing attention. As a child, I use to constantly doodle up plans for diabetes management improvement and far fetched ideas for ways to cure it. In college, by attending an extremely progressive and integrative institution, I learned that inter-disciplinary approaches of critical analysis give rise to true innovation. I have to believe it is competition like the one in this article and the DiabetesMine annual contest will continue to revolutionize management of the disease. It is important to remember that while we have come so far with diabetes treatment in such a short period of time, insulin is not a cure.