Memorial Page for Carl Djerassi

Carl Djerassi (born 29 October 1923 in Vienna; died 30 January 2015 in San Francisco) was an Austrian-born American chemist, university teacher, entrepreneur, writer and playwright. He was part of the Syntex team that synthesized norethisterone in 1951, a key compound in the development of the oral contraceptive pill. Later he connected research, industry, literature and arts patronage in an unusual way.

Childhood and emigration

Djerassi was born in Vienna to a Bulgarian physician father and an Austrian physician mother. After the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, he left Europe with his mother and came to the United States in 1939. He began again with little money, first studying at smaller colleges and then graduating early from Kenyon College. At the University of Wisconsin he received his doctorate in chemistry in 1945.

Pharmaceutical research and Syntex

After his doctorate, Djerassi worked at CIBA in New Jersey, where he contributed to an early commercial antihistamine. In 1949 he moved to Syntex in Mexico City. There industrial chemistry met a particular raw-material setting: steroids could be made from diosgenin, a compound found in Mexican yams. Syntex thereby became an important center of steroid research, and Djerassi quickly took on scientific responsibility.

Norethisterone and the pill

On 15 October 1951, norethisterone was synthesized at Syntex. The achievement is connected with Carl Djerassi, George Rosenkranz and Luis Miramontes; Miramontes carried out the decisive final synthetic step in the laboratory. The compound was active by mouth and became a chemical foundation for modern hormonal contraception. Djerassi was often called the "father of the pill", but the more precise story is one of a team, a Mexican research environment and a discovery with far-reaching social consequences.

Stanford and new methods

In 1959 Djerassi joined Stanford University and became a major force in chemistry there. He published at an extraordinary rate and worked on methods for determining the structures of complex molecules, including mass spectrometry and optical techniques. In the 1960s he also contributed to DENDRAL, an early expert system for chemical structure analysis. Djerassi therefore stood not only for one compound, but also for chemistry's move into new analytical and computer-assisted ways of working.

Writing and arts patronage

In the second half of his life Djerassi wrote novels, plays and autobiographical books. He called part of this work "science-in-fiction": scientific settings, ambition, competition and ethical questions became literary material in their own right. After the death of his daughter Pamela Djerassi Bush, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program was founded in California in 1979, later becoming one of the major fee-free artist residency programs in the United States. A private loss became a lasting place for artistic work.

Farewell

Carl Djerassi died in San Francisco on 30 January 2015 from complications of cancer. He was 91 years old. His name remains connected with the chemistry of the pill, but also with a broader life's work: research, entrepreneurship, technical curiosity, literature and support for artists.