- Person
- Carl Djerassi
- Lived
- 1923–2015
- Field
- Chemistry
- From
- Austrian-American
The story
By the late 1960s there was growing concern about the damage done by broad-spectrum chemical pesticides. Carl Djerassi, who had spent his career studying human hormones and had helped create the contraceptive pill, saw that the hormones of insects might offer a more targeted approach, one that would interfere with a pest's development instead of poisoning everything around it.
In 1968 he founded Zoecon, a company devoted to environmentally soft methods of pest control. Its products used modified insect growth hormones that stop larvae from developing into pupae and adults, so that pests cannot mature and reproduce. He founded it while teaching chemistry at Stanford, and from 1968 to 1972 he was also president of Syntex Research in Palo Alto.
Zoecon was later acquired by Occidental Petroleum, which sold it to Sandoz, now part of Novartis. Part of the business still survives in Dallas, Texas, making products to control fleas and other pests. Djerassi drew on the experience in his novel NO, in which young scientists turn a research idea into a company.
In 1991 Djerassi received the US National Medal of Technology for his broad technological contributions to solving environmental problems and for developing novel, practical approaches to insect control products that are biodegradable and harmless. He had already received the National Medal of Science in 1973 for the first synthesis of a steroid oral contraceptive, making him one of the few American scientists to hold both honours. He was also the first recipient of the Wolf Prize in Chemistry, in 1978.
The idea Zoecon helped pioneer, controlling insects by disrupting their growth rather than killing them outright with toxic chemicals, became a recognised class of pest control. Insect growth regulators of this kind are now widely used, for example in flea treatments for pets and in mosquito control programmes, where they break the insects' life cycle while reducing harm to people and wildlife.
Why it matters
Hormone-based insect control offered a way to manage pests while reducing harm to people, wildlife and the wider environment.
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.
- 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
- Methoprene Wikipedia
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.