Did your breakfast include orange juice, cereal, or maybe a sweetened cup of tea or coffee? Nothing special, right? Elizabeth Hughes, one of the world’s first diabetics to be successfully treated with pharmaceutical insulin, spent three years, between the ages of 11 and 14, unable to eat foods we take for granted. In fact, before she became part of the clinical trials for injectable insulin in the early 1920s, her doctor was treating her with the best option known, controlled starvation. Few people knew Elizabeth’s story—she and her family intended to keep it that way—but that changed with the publication, in September 2010 of Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of a Medical Miracle (St. Martin’s Press), co-authored by Thea Cooper and Arthur Ainsberg (’68, MBA ’72).
Ainsberg, who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease in 1975, was drawn to research and write the story of “a drug that turned a death sentence into something more akin to a chronic nuisance.” Elizabeth’s life mirrored his own. Had either been diagnosed with their respective illnesses just 10 years earlier, neither would have survived. “Our lives are proof of the profound and lasting impact a medical breakthrough can have,” he says.
Breakthrough, seven years in the making, skillfully weaves together the stories of patients, families, doctors, scientists, and the nascent pharmaceutical industry.
Ainsberg is not only a writer but a Wall Street veteran, having served in senior management and consulting roles at Oppenheimer, Odyssey Partners, and Morgan Stanley. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors at both Nomura Securities, Inc., and National Financial Partners Corp. In 2009 he was named the COO for Lehman Brothers Inc., in liquidation bankruptcy, the largest and most complex bankruptcy in U.S. history. He has been a trustee on The Baruch College Fund Board for the past 15 years.
—Diane Harrigan
Related Link: A Behind-the-Scenes Q&A with Arthur Ainsberg (’68, MBA ’72)