The Banting Research Foundation is a registered charity whose object was to fund health and biomedical research in Canada. It was established to support the ongoing research of
Frederick Banting and his associates.
History
The Banting Research Foundation was created in 1925 to commemorate the discovery of
insulin
Insulin (, from Latin ''insula'', 'island') is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the ''INS'' gene. It is considered to be the main anabolic hormone of the body. It regulates the metabolism o ...
and to support further medical research by Frederick G. Banting and other scientists in Canada, hoping to find additional medical discoveries of equal importance. A fundraising campaign in 1925, led by
Sir William Mulock
Sir William Mulock (January 19, 1843 – October 1, 1944) was a Canadian lawyer, businessman, educator, farmer, politician, judge, and philanthropist. He served as vice-chancellor of the University of Toronto from 1881 to 1900, negotiating th ...
, Chancellor of the
University of Toronto, raised $500,000 from individual and corporate donors to establish an endowment. A large bequest in 1948 from the estate of Kate E Taylor of Toronto was added to the endowment.
[Shorter, Edward. ''Partnership for Excellence: Medicine at the University of Toronto and Academic Hospitals''. University of Toronto Press, 2013. ]
From its inception, the intent was to create a fund for researchers with "good ideas but no money", as was the situation for Banting when he approached
JJR Macleod in 1921 with a request for facilities and resources to pursue his ideas about insulin. The Foundation continues that tradition by making grant funds available only to investigators whose research funding is limited. The Foundation was the first and virtually the only organization funding medical research in Canada until 1938
when the
National Research Council included medical research in its funding programs.
Some notable grant recipients
*
Frederick Banting
*
Charles Best
*
Wilfred Gordon Bigelow
*
Bruce Chown
The English language name Bruce arrived in Scotland with the Normans, from the place name Brix, Manche in Normandy, France, meaning "the willowlands". Initially promulgated via the descendants of king Robert the Bruce (1274−1329), it has been a ...
*
Michel Chrétien
*
Adolfo J. de Bold
*
John Dirks
*
Wilbur R. Franks
Wilbur Rounding Franks, OBE (4 March 1901 – 4 January 1986) was a Canadian scientist, notable as the inventor of the ''anti-gravity suit'' or G-suit, and for his work in cancer research.
Career
He was born in Weston, Ontario and was a me ...
*
Clarke Fraser
*
Henry Friesen
*
Arthur Ham
Arthur Worth Ham (20 February 1902 – 6 September 1992) was a prominent Canadian histologist. His textbook ''Histology'' is considered by many practitioners an indispensable reference.
Early life, education, and tennis
Ham's early educati ...
*
Charles Hollenberg
Charles H. Hollenberg (September 15, 1930 – April 8, 2003) was a Canadian physician, educator and researcher.
Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, he received a Bachelor of Science in 1950 and a Doctor of Medicine in 1955 from the University of Man ...
*
Charles Philippe Leblond
Charles Philippe Leblond (February 5, 1910 – April 10, 2007) was a pioneer of cell biology and stem cell research and a Canadian former professor of anatomy. Leblond is notable for developing autoradiography and his work showing how cells ...
*
D. W. Gordon Murray
*
William Thornton Mustard
*
Janet Rossant
*
Louis Siminovitch
Governance
The Foundation is incorporated in the province of Ontario, Canada. It is governed by a Board of Trustees, the make-up of which is specified in its Letters Patent as follows: three Trustees appointed by the Governing Council of the University of Toronto, two Trustees appointed by the University of Toronto Alumni Association, two Trustees appointed from the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine, and one Trustee appointed by the other Trustees.
The original Board of Trustees in 1925 was composed of
Sir Robert Falconer, chairman,
Lt Col Reuben W Leonard,
Rev Canon Henry J Cody, Charles Strange MacDonald,
William Edward Gallie,
John Gerald FitzGerald, Velyien Ewart Henderson, and John William Rogers.
[Hutchison, F Lorne. Banting Research Foundation. Can Med Assoc J. 1924 April; 14(4):335-336.]
References
External links
{{Archival records, title=Banting Research Foundation fonds
BantingResearchFoundation.ca
Health charities in Canada