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Pill, Pygmy Chimps, and Degas' Horse: The Remarkable Autobiography of the Award-Winning.........

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To read from the works of Carl Djerassi is to sample the mind of a creative genius the breadth of whose life activities spans scientific research to writing fiction and plays. His autobiography is best read in the context of some of his other works. This review of his autobiography will reference two of his works of fiction, The Bourbaki Gambit, and NO.

These books will never be on the best seller lists. Yet it precisely because of this that they should be read by scientists and engineers as food for thought. These books grew on me. By the time that I had finished them, I had experienced compelling plot lines. More importantly I had experienced the emotions of scientists at the beginnings and ends of their careers. Is Djerassi, at an age where many are spending their days playing golf or reliving their pasts, using science in fiction as metaphor for his own career? Is not the promise of the medical advances of the last several decades the time and the vitality to explore new horizons and to boldly embark on a new career, rather than to ride quietly into the sunset? If nothing else, these works celebrate creative solutions to how one manages one's career throughout one's life.

The Bourbaki Gambit has Max Weiss, professor of chemistry at Princeton University, being forced into a retirement that he neither wants nor is prepared for. Stunned at a sudden loss of all that has been his life, Max considers others in his predicament and hatches a plan to show that retirement age does not mean the end of contributions. The plan? Nothing less than to jointly make a fabulous scientific discovery, and publish it as a sole, fictitious author. Does the plan work? Read the book.

If this was all you read, you might be tempted to say that this is the swan song of an old professor, but NO takes us to the other end of the spectrum. The device for this book is the molecule nitric oxide, which is active in many physiological processes. Specifically this book is a fictionalized account of the development and commercialization of a predecessor to Viagra. urialism. In the end, both husband and wife fulfill their careers by going full circle.

To better understand these works as metaphors for a scientific career, you must read Dieresis's autobiography. The rather cumbersome title, The Pill, Pygmy Chimps, and Degas' Horse, prepares the reader for what comes -- a highly readable journey through a series of defining events in his life. Question: is it better to read the fiction first, or the autobiography? Clearly this is a man the power of whose ideas transcends science or literature. Approach the autobiography as an insight into his mind. From persecution in 1930's Vienna as a teenager; to dealing with the provincial culture of the Mid West at the outset of World War II; to performing world class chemical synthesis from an isolated setting in Mexico in the early 1950's (activities which led to the synthesis of compounds that ultimately became the oral contraceptive); Carl Djerassi defined his surroundings. Lesser individuals may have been victims of their circumstances, but Carl Djerassi took his surroundings and prevailed. This is the message of this autobiography.

Now back to the question -- which to read first. Read the fiction first. Technologists can enjoy these as stories that speak to them. An engineer nearing retirement will immediately bond with Max Weiss, who struggles with the complexities of retirement. A young technologist, one contemplating entrepreneurship, or a dual career couple will find kinship with the protagonists in NO as they struggle with pursuing their visions. Then read the autobiography. What makes the stories so good is that he is writing from experience. The young technologists in NO, working in Israel, could be the young Djerassi working in Mexico City. Max Weiss could be Djerassi at a Gordon Conference poking fun at priority at any cost mentality of some scientists. And the ever cool Diana Doyle-Ditmus represents the ideal for an intellectually and physically active senior lifestyle.

These books, read either as a set or individually, can be an inspiration to technologists at any point in their career.

Revealing autobiography of the scientist who transformed the world by synthesizing the Pill.
"I have no regrets that the Pill has contributed to the sexual revolution of our time and perhaps expedited it, because most of those changes in sexual mores would have happened anyway."

Djerassi give us an incisive picture of his personal life. But the biggest part of this book tells the intriguing story of the synthesizing of the Pill and the problems to prove that there were only minor side-effects: a battle with the FDA. A good lesson for every scientist.
He is perhaps too harsh for the environmental fundamentalist. But he remarks among other things that "... in general, life in the modern industrial world has not contributed to increased death from cancer", and that "99.9 percent of all pesticides consumed by humans are derived not from synthetics but rather from the plants themselves".
Also interesting is the story of the Pugwash Conference, whose altruistic goal was corrupted by a struggle between the cold war warriors.
His biggest confession "At heart, I'm still a gambler."
Excellent work, not only for scientists.

"The Pill, Pygmy Chimps, and Degas Horse: The Remarkable Autobiography of the Award-winning Scientist who Synthesized the Birth Control Pill," by Carl Djerassi, Basic Books, NY, 1992. Dr. Carl Djerassi is a PhD chemist who is best known as the Director of Research at Syntex, the company that made the birth control pill possible. He was a Jewish refuge from Bulgaria who came to New York by way of Vienna. There he managed to enter college without completing high school first at Newark Junior College in NJ, and then at Tarkio College in Tarkio, MO, where he had a scholarship and studied chemistry. On graduation, he took a job at CIBA, in Summit, NJ. He completed a PhD at the University of Wisconsin in a remarkable two years in 1945. After four more years at CIBA, he took a job as associate director of research at Syntex in Mexico City. This was when Mexico was a backwater in chemical research and even university training was marginal. Djerassi set out to change that.

Djerassi and Syntex came to chemistry when the significance of steroid compounds was first recognized. One, cortisone, was remarkable in the treatment of arthritis, but it was extracted from butchered animals making it costly and rare. Russell Marker of Pennsylvania State University discovered a wild yam growing in Mexico that contained an easily isolated steroid that could be converted to other steroids. In an age when a gram of cortisone was worth $200, Syntex synthesized a mason jar of it (worth $1MM) and had it delivered to a drug company by armored car. On this basis, Syntex was founded as a commercial source of steroids. Once steroids became practical and available, Syntex and Djerassi played a key role in exploring their potential resulting in synthetic hormones and eventually birth control pills. Djerassi does a good job describing the competitive nature of synthesis and publication of key steroids. Drug companies and leading chemists hurried to be first to publish.

In 1952, Djerassi moved to an academic position at Wayne State University in Detroit. There he continued research on steroids. The potential of steroids to prevent ovulation was recognized early in the 1950s and Seale and Parke-Davis both had an interest, but they feared the opposition of the Catholic Church and potential boycotts of major products. Finally, Ortho Division of Johnson & Johnson came to market first, followed a few years later by Searle and Parke-Davis.

In 1959, while on a two year sabbatical from Wayne State and working as director of research at Syntex in Mexico City, Djerassi was offered a position at Stanford University in Palo Alto. WS Johnson had been appointed head of the new department being created at Stanford. Syntex was acquired from its Mexican owners by Allen and Co., an investment bank, in the mid-fifties and taken public. The stock had done very well. In 1959, Syntex followed Djerassi to Palo Alto so Djerassi at Stanford could continue as an officer at Syntex.

Djerassi's career spanned the era when numerous instruments were developed to assist in determining the structure of organic chemicals. Instruments replaced wet methods which were laborious and much less informative. Djerassi made his mark in several instrumental methods included Optical Rotary Dispersion, where he published a book, and mass spectroscopy of organic compounds. He worked out the rules for fragmentation patterns that greatly increased the utility of mass spectroscopy in elucidating structure.

Syntex was acquired by Roche in 1994.

This book is a detailed telling of the professional career of a major scientist. It will be of interest as a company profile, telling of the challenges faced by Syntex as it pursued many ventures. It also describes the world of academia, the competitive aspects, as well as the value of the famous network of associates. Drug research has moved on to other topics and newer styles, but the same basic concept-a promising research lead is pursued to fully develop its potential-proved highly successful in the case of steroids, and is still the basic model that creates new drugs. Those considering careers in drug research will find it informative. Much of the story is well told, but parts will be appreciated more by those with some chemistry background.

Biographies of great scientists always seem to be filled with a sort of amazement that a scientist should turn out to be such a fascinating, creative human being. Perhaps people are still influenced by the old stereotype seen on TV and in the movies of the scientist as geek, or scientist as a dry, humorless person in a lab coat. But having spent many years working in research, and many more working with scientists at a major University, it's been my experience that scientists are, as a group, some of the most interesting and creative people you're likely to meet. They're more often than not ambitious and hard working in their pursuit of truth and knowledge in a way that few artists are; a painter can continue to turn out derivative works (as Picasso did) and still be proclaimed a genius. Scientists need to continually create and invent.

This shouldn't been all that surprising, as great science is made not by incremental data gathering, as most think, but by great leaps of inspiration, creativity, and synthesis of ideas. The best scientists, then, are equally as creative as the best artists- perhaps more so, as science is a much more complicated affair. We're often surprised to learn of a physicist who paints, or a biologist who writes poetry. Think of how much more surprised we'd be to learn of a poet who did cosmology, or a sculptor who dabbled in prime number theorizing.

Carl Djerassi is a chemist who writes novels and poetry, but that aspect of his life is much less interesting than his accomplishments in science. He's best known as the "father of the contraceptive pill", but his accomplishments in steroidal chemistry go far beyond that. Many of his papers are landmarks in the field, the lab techniques he developed are the cornerstone of any analytic labs today, and his students went on to become leading figures in academia and industry. He helped build up one of the most important drug companies in the world, started two great chemistry departments, and yes, wrote several novels, much poetry, and one honest and fascinating autobiography.

The author seems to take himself not too seriously and also by the portrait that he paints he seems not to be the ideal family man. It is interesting to read the description of his career path and I recommend the book to scientists and non-scientists alike.