- Person
- Carl Djerassi
- Lived
- 1923–2015
- Field
- Chemistry
- From
- Austrian-American
The story
Beyond the contraceptive pill, Carl Djerassi's main scientific legacy lies in the methods chemists use to find out exactly how the atoms in a molecule are arranged. After his breakthroughs at Syntex in Mexico City in 1951, he became a professor of chemistry at Wayne State University in Detroit from 1952 to 1959, and in 1960 he moved to Stanford University, where he taught until 2002 while also continuing to work in industry.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s he pioneered physical research techniques in two fields. Mass spectrometry identifies molecules by breaking them into fragments and weighing the pieces. Optical rotatory dispersion reveals the three-dimensional orientation of atoms from the way a compound affects polarised light. Djerassi refined both methods and applied them to steroid hormones and alkaloids, and in 1960 he published a book, Optical Rotatory Dispersion, on the method.
His work on mass spectrometry also led him into computing. In the mid-1960s he joined Joshua Lederberg and Edward Feigenbaum at Stanford in building DENDRAL, a program that deduced molecular structures from mass spectra and is regarded as the first expert system. Djerassi taught it the rules of chemistry it needed, and his group used it in their research for a decade.
His output was enormous: more than 1,200 scientific papers, many of them on the structures of steroids. His interests reached into pharmaceuticals, instrumentation, insect control, artificial intelligence and the biology and chemistry of marine organisms. He kept a twenty-year relationship with Syntex while teaching, serving as president of Syntex Research in Palo Alto from 1968 to 1972, and moved easily between the university laboratory and industry.
The honours reflected that range. He was the first recipient of the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1978, received the Perkin Medal in 1975 and the American Chemical Society's Priestley Medal in 1992, and was one of the few American scientists to receive both the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology.
Why it matters
The structural techniques Djerassi refined became everyday tools in chemistry and drug discovery, helping scientists identify natural products and new medicines.
About Carl Djerassi
Refugee from Nazi Vienna whose Syntex team in Mexico City first made norethindrone, a key oral contraceptive; later a novelist and playwright.
More about Carl Djerassi
- Carl Djerassi made cortisone from a Mexican yamIn 1951 Carl Djerassi's team at Syntex in Mexico City synthesised cortisone from a compound in a wild yam, using a cheaper raw material and about half as many steps.
- Carl Djerassi helped build DENDRAL, a pioneering AIIn 1965 Carl Djerassi, Joshua Lederberg and Edward Feigenbaum devised DENDRAL at Stanford, one of the first uses of artificial intelligence in biomedical research.
- Carl Djerassi helped create an early antihistamineAs a 19-year-old chemist at CIBA in New Jersey in 1942–43, Carl Djerassi helped develop Pyribenzamine, one of the first commercial antihistamines and his first patent.
- Carl Djerassi pioneered gentler insect controlIn 1968 Carl Djerassi founded Zoecon to control pests with modified insect hormones instead of broad poisons, work honoured with the US National Medal of Technology in 1991.
- Two chemists wrote the play Oxygen togetherIn 1999 Carl Djerassi and the Nobel chemist Roald Hoffmann co-wrote Oxygen, a play about the discovery of oxygen and about what it means to be a scientist.
- Carl Djerassi gave his Paul Klee collection to museumsCarl Djerassi assembled one of the most significant private collections of Paul Klee's art and arranged for it to go to the Albertina in Vienna and SFMOMA in San Francisco.
- Carl Djerassi turned his ranch into a haven for artistsAfter his daughter Pamela, an artist, died in 1978, Carl Djerassi turned his California cattle ranch into the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, a retreat for working artists.
- Carl Djerassi invented science-in-fictionStarting with Cantor's Dilemma in 1989, Carl Djerassi wrote novels in a genre he called science-in-fiction, showing readers how real scientists think, compete and behave.
- Carl Djerassi helped create the first oral contraceptiveIn 1951 Carl Djerassi, a refugee from Nazi Austria, co-invented norethisterone in Mexico City, the first highly active progestin that worked by mouth and a key ingredient of the Pill.
Sources
- Carl Djerassi Wikipedia
- Carl Djerassi Science History Institute
- Dendral Wikipedia
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