Now for some arithmetic. To produce chain A, the chemists had to perform almost a hundred different consecutive reactions. Chain B required more than a hundred. And so all this took many months of very painstaking work.

    But finally both chains were obtained. Now they had to be connected. And this is where the main difficulties sprang up. Disappointment followed upon disappointment. 

    Nevertheless, one fine evening there appeared in the laboratory log the laconic statement: "The synthesis of the insulin molecule is fully accomplished."

    Scientists had to go through two hundred and twenty three consecutive stages to obtain insulin artificially. Just think of that figure: hitherto not a single known chemical compound had been so difficult to prepare. It had taken ten men almost three years of incessant work to do it...

    But biochemists report a very curious thing: in a living cell the synthesis of protein takes... from two to three seconds.

    Three years, or three seconds! How far more perfect is the synthesis apparatus of the living cell than that of today's chemistry!

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