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Frances Ashcroft is a professor of physiology at the University of Oxford. In 1984, she discovered the mechanism by which levels of the hormone insulin are related to fluctuations in blood sugar level - if this mechanism does not work properly it can lead to diabetes. She was named European laureate at the 2012 L'Oreal-Unesco awards for Women in Science. Her book The Spark of Life (Allen Lane, pounds 20), explains how electricity is vital to the human body.
How did you find the missing link between insulin and blood sugar levels?
Your blood sugar level is controlled between very narrow limits. If it falls too low then you die within a few minutes because your brain is starved of food, and if it goes too high then you get diabetes. The hormone insulin is responsible for reducing blood sugar and for many years I've been interested in understanding how a rise in your blood sugar leads to the release of insulin from the beta cells of the pancreas.
I discovered that a particular type of protein, known as an ion channel, is crucially important for insulin release. Ion channels are found in the membrane that envelopes the beta cells, and they...