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September 27, 2012 British Scientist Driven To Find 'Spark Of
Life' Originally published on Tue October 2, 2012 1:47 pm One
night in 1984, British scientist Frances Ashcroft was studying
electricity in the body and discovered the protein that causes
neonatal diabetes. She says she felt so "over the moon" that she
couldn't sleep. By the next morning, she says, she thought it
was a mistake. But luckily, that feeling was wrong, and
Ashcroft's revelation led to a medical breakthrough decades
later, which now enables people born with diabetes to take pills
instead of injecting insulin. "I don't think people realize the
excitement of being a true discoverer," Ashcroft tells Fresh
Air's Terry Gross. "There are no new places to discover on this
Earth, but there are many, many new ideas to discover — new
things to find out about the way the world works." Ashcroft says
she grew up wanting to be a farmer's wife but later became
fascinated with studying electrical i