J. B. Collip and the Development of Medical Research in Canada: Extracts and Enterprise (review)

James Bertram Collip was the brilliant young biochemist from the University of Alberta whose scientific expertise contributed to the purification of insulin. As the fourth member of the team that discovered this life-saving therapeutic, he has long awaited an official biography. In J. B. Collip and the Development of Medical Research in Canada, Alison Li not only provides his life story but also presents a cogent analysis of the evolution of medical research in Canada. By combining the major events of Collip's career with a careful assessment of the challenges facing researchers looking for funds to support their work in an era prior to the advent of significant governmental support, she clearly demonstrates that current controversies over university-corporate links and the never-ending battle between basic and applied research have deep roots.

After completing his undergraduate studies in science at the University of Toronto, Collip chose to pursue graduate studies in biochemistry—a new field. In 1915 he took up his first academic appointment at the two-year-old University of Alberta Medical School. During his first travelling fellowship, he arrived in Toronto to work at his alma mater and became part of the most momentous discovery in the history of Canadian medical science. The Nobel Prize and the conflict and controversy around the discovery forever marked Collip's approach to research and led him to complete a medical degree in order to become a pioneer in Canadian medical research. But perhaps the most important lessons that he learned were the need for sustained funding and the role of competition in the research enterprise.

More fortunate than most of his contemporaries, Collip was able to use his share of the royalties from the insulin patent as the basis for expanding his research program, facilities, and staff. Even after he joined both McGill (1928–47) and the University of Western Ontario (1947–65), he was able to draw on these funds. This money, as well as significant support from generous donors during the 1930s, enabled Collip to continue his research into parathyroid and placental hormones. But the presence of competing researchers, and the challenge of working with pharmaceutical companies to develop therapeutic but commercially viable applications, illustrated the range of difficulties facing even a researcher of Collip's stature.

Collip was a leader in creating bench science as a university discipline, and his relationships with various department heads, deans, and university presidents therefore offer useful lessons in tactics and strategy for modern researchers. Based on the evidence provided, he was so convinced of the rightness of his approach that he made demands that lesser scientists could not have hoped to have fulfilled, and generally administrators accepted his requests. One exception was the Rockefeller Foundation's refusal to support the creation of an endocrinology research institute at McGill in the 1930s: for once, not only was Collip out of synch with the philanthropic milieu, but his eclectic approach to investigating research problems was seen as a failing rather than a strength.

In the late 1930s Canada began to recognize the central role that basic scientific research would play in health care and other fields, and a medical committee under the direction of Sir Frederick Banting was created within the National Research Council (NRC). After Banting's death in 1941, Collip was appointed committee chair and he directed the Canadian war effort while liaising with British and American research groups. After the war, he continued to work for the development of a national funding body but did not return to his own research, choosing instead to move to the University of Western Ontario as the dean of medicine. Fundamentally a creator and innovator, Collip wanted the challenge of molding a small faculty into a research powerhouse. As this well-written...