James Collip

James Collip
J. B. Collip in his office at McGill University ca. 1930
Born	James Bertram Collip (1892-11-20)November 20, 1892 Belleville, Ontario
Died	June 19, 1965(1965-06-19) (aged 72)
Fields	Biochemistry
Alma mater	University of Toronto
Known for	Insulin
Notable awards	Flavelle Medal (1936) Fellow of the Royal Society

James Bertram Collip, Ph.D. (November 20, 1892 – June 19, 1965) was part of the Toronto group which isolated insulin. He served as the Chair of the Department of Biochemistry at McGill University from 1928–1941 and Dean of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario from 1947–1961, where he was a charter member of The Kappa Alpha Society.

Born in Belleville, Ontario, he enrolled at Trinity College at the University of Toronto at the age of 15, and studied physiology and biochemistry. He obtained a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the same university in 1916.

In 1915, at the age of 22, Collip accepted a lecturing position in Edmonton in the Department of Physiology at the University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine, shortly before completing his doctorate studies. He fulfilled the role for 7 years, eventually rising to the position of Professor and Head of the Department of Biochemistry in 1922. His research at the time was mainly focused on blood chemistry of vertebrates and invertebrates.

He took a sabbatical leave beginning in April 1921, and travelled to Toronto on a Rockefeller Travelling Scholarship for a six-month position with Professor J. J. R. MacLeod of the University of Toronto's Department of Physiology. There his research program (on the effect of pH on the concentration of sugar in the blood) would take him to marine biological stations in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and St. Andrews, New Brunswick before he returned to Toronto late in the year.