Carl Djerassi was born in Austria in 1923. In 1938, he and his mother moved to Bulgaria and then to the United States in order to escape the rise of Nazi rule in Europe. He completed his undergraduate studies in chemistry in 1941 at age 18 at Kenyon College. He received his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1945. Djerassi then joined CIBA Pharmaceuticals as a research chemist, where he developed his first patent, one of the first commercial antihistamines.
Djerassi accepted a position as associate director of research for Syntex in Mexico City. There, he and colleagues advanced hormone synthesis methods including ones that led to the development of oral contraceptive pills, known as the birth-control pill. He became a part-time professor of chemistry at Stanford University in 1959, which enabled him to continue to work in industry including as president of Syntex at Palo Alto from 1968 to 1972. In 1968, he founded Zoecon, a company which focused on environmentally soft methods of pest control that eventually sold to Occidental Petroleum.
Djerassi is one of a few American chemists to have been awarded both the National Medal of Science, which he received for his work developing the Pill, and the National Medal of Technology, which he received for promoting new approaches to insect control. He is also the founder of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program near Woodside, California, which provides residencies and studio space for artists in the visual arts, literature, music, choreography and the performing arts.
Djerassi delivered the Beatty Lecture on January 26, 1999, titled 鈥淪cience-in-fiction is not science fiction鈥�.
Image: Djerassi Resident Artists Program
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