Upon entering the room, visitors would be met by a hologram of Laura—a young girl from 1920 sharing her ongoing struggle with Type 1 diabetes. In her own words, Laura would describe how she struggles to keep up with her friends and how she lives in fear that she may fall desperately ill at any time because her blood sugar rises too high or falls too low. The hologram of Laura slowly fades away, and guests then enter a room that envelops them in the story of insulin.

The visitor would be virtually transported to London in 1921 to witness Frederick Banting and Charles Best discover that a substance in the pancreas – insulin – could lower elevated blood sugar in a diabetic dog and their elation when, six months later, a purified form of insulin did the same for a child with Type I diabetes. Visitors would get a sense of the extraordinary efforts made to scale up production of insulin in those early years and what was involved in producing just one ounce of this precious substance. They would hear about the quest for better, longer-acting insulins in the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s and their impact on reducing the frequency of injections needed. They would see how the emergence of recombinant DNA technology in the 1980s led to the production, for the first time, of fully human insulin. Interactive kiosks would be placed around the exhibit to provide a deeper look into selected areas of potential interest such as how diabetes affects various organs, how abnormally high or low blood sugar affects the body, and the differences between Type I and Type II diabetes, just to name a few.

At the end of the exhibit, a second hologram of young Laura would appear, but now in 2023. She is strong, active and speaks with excitement about her life and plans for the future. She lifts her shirt to reveal that she is wearing a glucose monitor linked to an insulin pump that keeps her blood sugar level in the normal range.

This installation would reveal the underlying biology of a specific disease, the body’s response to it, and how medical intervention impacts the disease process. One example would be how infections are acquired, how the immune system responds to it, how medicines help clear the body of the infection, and how vaccines could prevent or mitigate it.

This installation would detail how laboratory discoveries are made, shared, and challenged; how those discoveries are placed in context to health and disease; how that leads to the creation of new medicines, vaccines, or devices; how those interventions are tested in people for safety and efficacy; and finally how those medical advances reach and benefit the general public.

This installation would highlight the complementary roles played by universities, industry, government, patients and society. The visitor will see how each group approaches a problem with a very specific perspective and set of questions. They can take control of an imaginary medicine and see how each of those questions must be answered before a new medicine can be approved for general use.

This installation would explore how errors in medicine occurred, how they were detected, and how they were corrected. This presentation will delve into issues of informed consent, ethical oversight, misinformation, and disinformation.