There is a long tradition of excellence in endocrine research, clinical care and teaching at McGill. Endocrine research was initiated by James B. Collip, the co-discoverer of insulin, and continued by John S. L. Browne and Eleanor H. Venning in the Endocrine Laboratory. They opened the era of steroid hormone research, which was extended by Sam Solomon. John C. Beck, the founding director of the Endocrine Division (1954), and Eleanor McGarry defined growth hormone action in man.
A highlight in the evolution of our clinical program was the founding, in 1959, of the Metabolic Day Centre by Martin Hoffman, the first centre in North America in which diabetic patients received multidisciplinary support from physicians, nurses, podiatrists, and dieticians at each visit.
In 1964, John Dupré showed that intestinal factors regulate insulin secretion, which led to discovery of incretins (metabolic hormones that stimulate a decrease in blood glucose levels).
In the 1970s, J. Maxwell Mackenzie determined that Grave’s disease, a common form of thyroid hyperfunction, was due to a circulating thyroid stimulating antibody. Henry Friesen and Harvey Guyda developed an exam for levels of prolactin in the blood. Paul Kelly cloned the gene encoding the prolactin receptor. Barry Posner identified novel target tissues for insulin and other peptide hormones (namely the placenta, small blood vessels and the brain for insulin).
In the 1980s and 90s, Yogesh C. Patel and Combinatoire Srikant identified multiple forms of the receptor for somatostatin (SST) and defined much of the cell biology of this hormone. John Bergeron and Barry Posner showed that peptide hormones bound to their cell surface receptors and are taken up into a unique cellular organelle leading to signaling endosome. David Goltzman demonstrated a circulating peptide responsible for hypercalcemia (high levels of calcium in the blood) in cancer patients, eventually identified as PTH-RP. Errol Marliss developed the field of insulin resistance of protein metabolism. George Fantus demonstrated the regulatory role of protein tyrosine phosphatase activity in the physiology of insulin receptor signaling. Simon Wing defined key enzymatic mechanisms underlying muscle loss seen in starvation. Hans Zingg showed that the pituitary hormone, oxytocin, was produced in the uterus and contributed to labor and childbirth. More recently, Robert Sladek, Constantin Polychronakos and colleagues respectively identified genes predisposing to Type 1 and 2 diabetes, two milestones in the history of diabetes research.