Title: Know Your Insulin.

Authors: 

Shantanu Sen,^a Rafat Ali,^a Harminder Singh,^a Akanksha Onkar,^b Pratibha Bhadauriya,^b Subramaniam Ganesh,^b and Sandeep Verma^a*

a. Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur 208016, UP, India.

b. Department of Biological Sciences & Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur 208016, UP, India.

Email: ssen@iitk.ac.in

Introduction: 

Insulin often forms toxic fibrils during production transportation and storage, which are deposited as amyloids at repeated injection sites in diabetic patients. Distinguishing early fibrils from non-fibrillated insulin is difficult. Herein, we introduce a chemically modified human insulin derivative with a distinct visual colour transition upon aggregation, facilitating insulin quality assessment.