- Person
- Carl Djerassi
- Lived
- 1923–2015
- Field
- Chemistry
- From
- Austrian-American
The story
In 1985, already one of the most celebrated chemists in the world, Carl Djerassi said he wanted to lead one more life and leave a cultural imprint on society, not just a technological benefit. The refugee from Nazi Vienna who had helped create the contraceptive pill turned to fiction.
His first novel, Cantor's Dilemma (1989), follows a scientist who suspects fraud in his own laboratory and explores the ethics of modern research. It was followed by The Bourbaki Gambit, about personal ambition and credit; Menachem's Seed, which deals with the fertility technique ICSI and the Pugwash organisation of scientists; and NO, in which young scientists develop an idea all the way to founding a company, something Djerassi had done himself with insect-control products. His fifth novel, Marx, Deceased, looks at how an author's earlier best sellers shape the reception of a new book.
Djerassi described four of the five as science-in-fiction. Unlike science fiction, they portrayed real science and the lives of real kinds of scientists, with all their accomplishments, conflicts and aspirations: the hunt for recognition, the pressures of competition and the lure of financial reward. The genre is also known as lab lit. In 1995 he gave a lecture titled Science-in-Fiction Is Not Science Fiction, explaining the difference.
He used fiction as a teaching tool, believing that stories could carry accurate science and an honest picture of scientific culture to readers who would never open a textbook. He went on to write plays in the same spirit, including Oxygen with the Nobel chemist Roald Hoffmann, as well as short stories, poetry and four volumes of autobiography, the last of which, In Retrospect: From the Pill to the Pen, appeared in 2014.
His literary work brought honours of its own, including a prize from the German Chemical Society for writers in 2001 and an honorary doctorate in the humanities from the Technical University of Dortmund in 2009 for his literary work.
Why it matters
Djerassi's novels opened the inner world of research to general readers and helped establish lab lit as a recognised literary form.
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 published more than 1,200 scientific papersCarl Djerassi pioneered the use of mass spectrometry and optical rotatory dispersion to decode the structures of steroids and alkaloids, publishing more than 1,200 papers.
- 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 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
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.