Carl djerassi autobiography samples

As is well known, in at the age of 26, he joined Syntex, S. In his first two years at Syntex, he and his team published more than 60 papers and filed numerous patents on steroid chemistry, in particular the synthesis of cortisone from a steroidal sapogenin obtained from Mexican yams. This work was followed quickly by the synthesis October 15,patenting, and publication of norethindrone, the active steroid in two of the first oral contraceptives approved by the FDA.

InCarl moved to Wayne University in Detroit and commenced his academic career. In Detroit, he opened new lines of natural products research and initiated his development of chiroptical methods with a large group of post-doctoral fellows and graduate students. He became Professor Emeritus at Stanford in All told, he trained more than graduate students and post-doctoral fellows from 51 countries.

At the time he started working in mass spectrometry at Stanford, he also brought thin layer chromatography and gas chromatography into his laboratory.

Carl djerassi autobiography samples

With these new techniques, he was able to reduce significantly the quantities of material required for purification and characterization of new natural products. Mass spectrometry provided molecular masses and structurally characteristic fragmentation profiles on far less material than had previously been required just for a mixed melting point determination.

Carl wrote that his attention was drawn to mass spectrometry and its potential for analysis of natural products by publications from Ivor Reed in Glasgow, the Stenhagens in Sweden, and Klaus Biemann at MIT. Dudley Williams joined the team inand work began on the series of books that was to shape globally the interpretation of organic mass spectra for the next 25 years.

He was always very precise with words, and he taught his students that ions have abundances, while peaks have intensities. He instituted the use of fishhooks to indicate homolytic bond cleavage and arrows to indicate heterolytic bond cleavage and two-electron movement. All four of his books on fragmentation mechanisms emphasize the importance of this kind of electron bookkeeping.

Although much of his own research appeared in JACSthe mass spectrometry field expanded very rapidly, and soon JACS and the natural product journals could not hold all the papers. Djerassi was influential in the introduction of two specialized journals by the British publisher Heyden and Son: Organic Mass Spectrometry and Biological Mass Spectrometry.

These were combined in to form the present day Journal of Mass Spectrometry published by John Wiley. Djerassi initiated training in mass spectrometry of a first generation of graduate students, including Lazlo Tokes, Bob Shapiro, Sheila Sample, and Catherine Fenselau. The Stanford Ph. We were told to go forth and multiply. At Stanford, Djerassi regularly held carl djerassi autobiography samples parties at his home or at his ranch.

At one point in his career, he was publishing almost one paper a week, and many of these papers were written by hand beside the pool see Figure 2. Djerassi exercised great ingenuity in the classroom training he provided to both graduate students and Stanford undergraduates. In one of his early graduate classes, the students collectively wrote a book on steroid chemistry.

The book was published by Holden Day and sold well. The profit was used to help erect a small round building for graduate seminars. He repeatedly offered well-subscribed undergraduate classes that addressed issues in scientific ethics and later incorporated the arts into a curriculum of science, ethics, and writing. He thought and wrote about many of the issues associated with his science.

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Metropolitan Museum Cleveland Museum of Art. Published : 18 September Issue Date : December Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:. Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative. Structural Chemistry Aims and scope Submit manuscript.

Abstract The stereochemist and steroid chemist Carl Djerassi turned poet, novelist, and playwright, published another autobiography taking stock of his prolific production of science-in-fiction during the last decades. Access this article Log in via an institution. References Hargittai I Carl Djerassi. Rights and permissions Reprints and permissions.

About this article. Cite this article Hargittai, I.