In the mid- to late 1970s, recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid methods for cloning and expressing genes in E. coli were under intense development. The important question had become: Can humans design and chemically synthesize novel genes that function in bacteria? This question was answered in 1978 and in 1979 with the successful expression in E. coli of 2 mammalian hormones, first somatostatin and then human insulin. The successful production of human insulin in bacteria provided, for the first time, a practical, scalable source of human insulin and resulted in the approval, in 1982, of human insulin for the treatment of diabetics. In this short review, I give my personal view of how the making, cloning, and expressing of human insulin genes was accomplished by a team of scientists led by Keiichi Itakura, Herbert W. Boyer, and myself.

中文翻译：

---

人类胰岛素基因在细菌中的制造、克隆和表达：通往 Humulin 的途径

在 1970 年代中后期，用于在大肠杆菌中克隆和表达基因的重组脱氧核糖核酸方法得到了大力发展。重要的问题变成了：人类能否设计和化学合成在细菌中起作用的新基因？这个问题在 1978 年和 1979 年在大肠杆菌中成功表达得到了回答2 种哺乳动物激素，首先是生长抑素，然后是人胰岛素。在细菌中成功生产人胰岛素首次提供了一种实用的、可扩展的人胰岛素来源，并导致 1982 年批准人胰岛素用于治疗糖尿病。在这篇简短的评论中，我对由板仓敬一、赫伯特 W. 博耶和我自己领导的科学家团队如何完成人类胰岛素基因的制造、克隆和表达发表了个人看法。