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Percy Lavon Julian (April 11, 1899 – April 19, 1975) was a research chemist and a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs from plants.[1] He was the first to synthesize the natural product physostigmine, plus a pioneer in the industrial large-scale chemical synthesis of the human hormones progesterone and testosterone from plant sterols such as stigmasterol and sitosterol. His work laid the foundation for the steroid drug industry's production of cortisone, other corticosteroids, and birth control pills.[2][3][4]
He later started his own company to synthesize steroid intermediates from the wild Mexican yam. His work helped greatly reduce the cost of steroid intermediates to large multinational pharmaceutical companies, helping to significantly expand the use of several important drugs.[5][6]
Julian received more than 130 chemical patents. He was one of the first African Americans to receive a doctorate in chemistry. He was the first African-American chemist inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, and the second African-American scientist inducted (behind David Blackwell) from any field.[5]
He later started his own company to synthesize steroid intermediates from the wild Mexican yam. His work helped greatly reduce the cost of steroid intermediates to large multinational pharmaceutical companies, helping to significantly expand the use of several important drugs.[5][6]
Julian received more than 130 chemical patents. He was one of the first African Americans to receive a doctorate in chemistry. He was the first African-American chemist inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, and the second African-American scientist inducted (behind David Blackwell) from any field.[5]
Percy Lavon Julian - Wikipedia
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Hidden Figures: Percy Julian Forgotten Genius (1 of 2)
His house was firebombed. He lost his job on the eve of the Depression. He took on powerful, entrenched interests in the scientific establishment and overcam...
Thank you, my friend Maj Marty Hogan for making us aware that April 11 is the anniversary of the birth of African American research chemist and a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs from plants Percy Lavon Julian who first to synthesize the natural product physostigmine.
Rest in peace Percy Lavon Julian!
Image: 1993 Percy Julian Stamp - Scott number 2746
Background from sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/percy-lavon-julian
"A steroid chemist and an entrepreneur, Percy Julian ingeniously figured out how to synthesize important medicinal compounds from abundant plant sources, making them more affordable to mass-produce.
In the 1930s chemists recognized the structural similarity of a large group of natural substances—the steroids. These include the sex hormones and the cortical hormones of the adrenal glands. The medicinal potential of these compounds was clear, but extracting sufficient quantities of them from animal tissue and fluids was prohibitively expensive. As with other scarce or difficult-to-isolate natural products, chemists were called upon to mimic nature by creating these steroids in the lab and later by modifying them to make them safer and more effective as drugs. Chemists found their starting materials in certain plant substances that were also steroids. Percy Lavon Julian (1899–1975) was among the many scientists, including Russell Earl Marker, Carl Djerassi, and George Rosenkranz, who participated actively in the synthesis and large-scale production of steroids from plant compounds.
Education and Early Career
Julian was born in Montgomery, Alabama, the son of a railway mail clerk and the grandson of slaves. In an era when African Americans faced prejudice in virtually all aspects of life, not least in the scientific world, he succeeded against the odds. Inadequately prepared by his high school, he was accepted at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, as a sub-freshman, meaning that he had to take high-school courses concurrently with his freshman courses. Majoring in chemistry, he graduated as valedictorian of his class in 1920. After graduation he taught chemistry at Fisk University for two years before winning an Austin Fellowship to Harvard University, where he completed a master’s degree in organic chemistry. After Harvard he returned to teaching at West Virginia State College and Howard University.
Physostigmine for Glaucoma
In 1929 Julian traveled to the University of Vienna, Austria, to begin doctoral studies on the chemistry of medicinal plants. Two years later, with degree in hand, he and a Viennese colleague, Josef Pikl, took positions back in the United States at Howard and two years later moved to DePauw. There they accomplished the first total synthesis of physostigmine, the active principle of the Calabar bean, used since the end of the 19th century to treat glaucoma. Physostigmine, an alkaloid, eases the constriction of outflow channels from the eye’s aqueous humor to relieve high pressure there, which, if left untreated, damages the retina and eventually causes blindness.
Steroids from Soybeans: Progesterone
Meanwhile researchers in many countries were seeking innovative and cost-effective ways to synthesize steroids, including cortisone and the sex hormones. German chemists discovered that the steroid stigmasterol, which Julian had obtained as a by-product of the physostigmine synthesis but was also obtainable from soybeans, could be used in the synthesis of certain sex hormones, including progesterone, a female sex hormone that was important in helping pregnant women avoid miscarriages. In pursuit of this lead, in 1936 Julian wrote to the Glidden Company in Chicago, requesting samples of their soybean oil. Through a series of events he wound up being hired by Glidden instead, as their director of research in the Soya Division, where he set about figuring out ways to make new products from soybeans.
Three years after arriving at Glidden, Julian learned from plant workers that water had leaked into a tank of purified soybean oil and formed a solid white mass. Immediately identifying the substance as stigmasterol, he realized he had stumbled upon a method for producing large amounts of the steroid from soybeans. Though scientists already knew how to synthesize progesterone from stigmasterol, they didn’t have a method for doing it on a massive scale. Now with large quantities of stigmasterol at hand, he was able to develop an innovative industrial process for converting it to progesterone in bulk, producing five to six pounds of progesterone per day (worth thousands of dollars in those days). Soon other sex hormones were in production.
Cortisone and Hydrocortisone
In 1948 scientists at the Mayo Clinic announced their landmark discovery of cortisone, which had remarkable effects on rheumatoid arthritis, and Julian jumped into the exciting competition to synthesize cortisone inexpensively (see also Carl Djerassi). Cortisone is a cortical hormone of the adrenal gland. In 1949 Julian developed a new synthesis for a related substance (called “Substance S”) also present in the adrenal cortex and differing from cortisone by only an oxygen atom. From this substance he was able to synthesize both cortisone and hydrocortisone. Hydrocortisone and its derivatives today are more widely prescribed than cortisone products, and most industrial syntheses still begin along the same route that Julian pioneered.
Later Life
Julian remained at Glidden until 1954, when he founded his own company, Julian Laboratories of Franklin Park, Illinois, and Mexico City (which he eventually sold to Smith, Kline and French). Throughout his life he was socially active in groups seeking to advance conditions for African Americans, helping to found the Legal Defense and Educational Fund of Chicago and serving on the boards of several other organizations and universities."
Hidden Figures: Percy Julian Forgotten Genius (1 of 2)
His house was firebombed. He lost his job on the eve of the Depression. He took on powerful, entrenched interests in the scientific establishment and overcame countless obstacles to become a world-class chemist, a self-made millionaire, and a humanitarian. Yet despite his achievements, Percy Julian’s story is largely unknown.
The grandson of Alabama slaves, Julian broke the color barrier in American science more than a decade before Jackie Robinson did in baseball. A brilliant innovator, he discovered a way to turn soybeans into synthetic steroids on an industrial scale, helping to make drugs like cortisone available to millions.
While he'd encountered constant racial obstacles from his colleagues and the science community, Julian overcome them and became more successful than any other American scientist in the first half of the 20th century.
In Forgotten Genius, a special two-hour presentation starring Tony-award winning actor Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and narrated by Emmy-award winning actor Courtney B. Vance, brings Julian’s scientific breakthroughs and gripping biography to life, with vivid period reenactments based on newly opened family archives and interviews with dozens of colleagues and relatives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6r7A_unnE0
FYI LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey SFC William Farrell SGT Mark Halmrast Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Gregory Lawritson CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins SSgt Brian Brakke 1stSgt Eugene Harless SSG William Jones SSG Diane R.
Rest in peace Percy Lavon Julian!
Image: 1993 Percy Julian Stamp - Scott number 2746
Background from sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/percy-lavon-julian
"A steroid chemist and an entrepreneur, Percy Julian ingeniously figured out how to synthesize important medicinal compounds from abundant plant sources, making them more affordable to mass-produce.
In the 1930s chemists recognized the structural similarity of a large group of natural substances—the steroids. These include the sex hormones and the cortical hormones of the adrenal glands. The medicinal potential of these compounds was clear, but extracting sufficient quantities of them from animal tissue and fluids was prohibitively expensive. As with other scarce or difficult-to-isolate natural products, chemists were called upon to mimic nature by creating these steroids in the lab and later by modifying them to make them safer and more effective as drugs. Chemists found their starting materials in certain plant substances that were also steroids. Percy Lavon Julian (1899–1975) was among the many scientists, including Russell Earl Marker, Carl Djerassi, and George Rosenkranz, who participated actively in the synthesis and large-scale production of steroids from plant compounds.
Education and Early Career
Julian was born in Montgomery, Alabama, the son of a railway mail clerk and the grandson of slaves. In an era when African Americans faced prejudice in virtually all aspects of life, not least in the scientific world, he succeeded against the odds. Inadequately prepared by his high school, he was accepted at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, as a sub-freshman, meaning that he had to take high-school courses concurrently with his freshman courses. Majoring in chemistry, he graduated as valedictorian of his class in 1920. After graduation he taught chemistry at Fisk University for two years before winning an Austin Fellowship to Harvard University, where he completed a master’s degree in organic chemistry. After Harvard he returned to teaching at West Virginia State College and Howard University.
Physostigmine for Glaucoma
In 1929 Julian traveled to the University of Vienna, Austria, to begin doctoral studies on the chemistry of medicinal plants. Two years later, with degree in hand, he and a Viennese colleague, Josef Pikl, took positions back in the United States at Howard and two years later moved to DePauw. There they accomplished the first total synthesis of physostigmine, the active principle of the Calabar bean, used since the end of the 19th century to treat glaucoma. Physostigmine, an alkaloid, eases the constriction of outflow channels from the eye’s aqueous humor to relieve high pressure there, which, if left untreated, damages the retina and eventually causes blindness.
Steroids from Soybeans: Progesterone
Meanwhile researchers in many countries were seeking innovative and cost-effective ways to synthesize steroids, including cortisone and the sex hormones. German chemists discovered that the steroid stigmasterol, which Julian had obtained as a by-product of the physostigmine synthesis but was also obtainable from soybeans, could be used in the synthesis of certain sex hormones, including progesterone, a female sex hormone that was important in helping pregnant women avoid miscarriages. In pursuit of this lead, in 1936 Julian wrote to the Glidden Company in Chicago, requesting samples of their soybean oil. Through a series of events he wound up being hired by Glidden instead, as their director of research in the Soya Division, where he set about figuring out ways to make new products from soybeans.
Three years after arriving at Glidden, Julian learned from plant workers that water had leaked into a tank of purified soybean oil and formed a solid white mass. Immediately identifying the substance as stigmasterol, he realized he had stumbled upon a method for producing large amounts of the steroid from soybeans. Though scientists already knew how to synthesize progesterone from stigmasterol, they didn’t have a method for doing it on a massive scale. Now with large quantities of stigmasterol at hand, he was able to develop an innovative industrial process for converting it to progesterone in bulk, producing five to six pounds of progesterone per day (worth thousands of dollars in those days). Soon other sex hormones were in production.
Cortisone and Hydrocortisone
In 1948 scientists at the Mayo Clinic announced their landmark discovery of cortisone, which had remarkable effects on rheumatoid arthritis, and Julian jumped into the exciting competition to synthesize cortisone inexpensively (see also Carl Djerassi). Cortisone is a cortical hormone of the adrenal gland. In 1949 Julian developed a new synthesis for a related substance (called “Substance S”) also present in the adrenal cortex and differing from cortisone by only an oxygen atom. From this substance he was able to synthesize both cortisone and hydrocortisone. Hydrocortisone and its derivatives today are more widely prescribed than cortisone products, and most industrial syntheses still begin along the same route that Julian pioneered.
Later Life
Julian remained at Glidden until 1954, when he founded his own company, Julian Laboratories of Franklin Park, Illinois, and Mexico City (which he eventually sold to Smith, Kline and French). Throughout his life he was socially active in groups seeking to advance conditions for African Americans, helping to found the Legal Defense and Educational Fund of Chicago and serving on the boards of several other organizations and universities."
Hidden Figures: Percy Julian Forgotten Genius (1 of 2)
His house was firebombed. He lost his job on the eve of the Depression. He took on powerful, entrenched interests in the scientific establishment and overcame countless obstacles to become a world-class chemist, a self-made millionaire, and a humanitarian. Yet despite his achievements, Percy Julian’s story is largely unknown.
The grandson of Alabama slaves, Julian broke the color barrier in American science more than a decade before Jackie Robinson did in baseball. A brilliant innovator, he discovered a way to turn soybeans into synthetic steroids on an industrial scale, helping to make drugs like cortisone available to millions.
While he'd encountered constant racial obstacles from his colleagues and the science community, Julian overcome them and became more successful than any other American scientist in the first half of the 20th century.
In Forgotten Genius, a special two-hour presentation starring Tony-award winning actor Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and narrated by Emmy-award winning actor Courtney B. Vance, brings Julian’s scientific breakthroughs and gripping biography to life, with vivid period reenactments based on newly opened family archives and interviews with dozens of colleagues and relatives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6r7A_unnE0
FYI LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey SFC William Farrell SGT Mark Halmrast Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Gregory Lawritson CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins SSgt Brian Brakke 1stSgt Eugene Harless SSG William Jones SSG Diane R.
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