Science & invention / Literature / Theatre & dance
Carl Djerassi
1923–2015 · chemist, novelist, playwright
Chemist known as a father of the birth-control pill, who taught at Wayne State University in Detroit through most of the 1950s and later wrote plays and novels.
- Born
Vienna, Austria- Died
San Francisco, California
aged 91- Also known as
- father of the pill
- Detroit years
- 1952–1959
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Carl Djerassi was born in Vienna in 1923, fled Europe as a teenager and became one of the most productive chemists of his century. In 1951, while working for the drug company Syntex in Mexico City, he led the team that synthesized norethindrone, the compound that became a basis of oral contraceptives. The following year he moved to Detroit as a professor of chemistry at Wayne State University, where he taught and ran a research group from 1952 to 1959, working on steroids and on new ways of reading molecular structure. In 1957 he took leave from Wayne State to become research vice president at Syntex, and he later settled at Stanford. In his later decades he reinvented himself as a writer of 'science-in-fiction' novels and 'science-in-theatre' plays, and he founded an artists' residency program in California.
Highlights
- Led the 1951 synthesis of norethindrone, a key compound of the birth-control pill
- Professor of chemistry at Wayne State University, Detroit (1952–1959)
- U.S. National Medal of Science (1973) and National Medal of Technology (1991)
- Playwright of Oxygen (with Roald Hoffmann) and An Immaculate Misconception
- Co-founded the Djerassi Resident Artists Program
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1952–1959
Wayne State University, Department of Chemistry
Djerassi was professor of chemistry here for seven years, on leave to Syntex from 1957.