Djerassi, Carl (1923– )

Austrian-born US chemist, inventor, and writer. He became professor of chemistry at Stanford. He claims to have been the prime developer of the birth control pill, but the scientific community has disputed this. However, he did make important contributions to steroid research.

He was born in Vienna and became a refugee immigrant to the USA in 1939. It was while working for a little-known firm in Mexico City in 1951 that he was involved in the testing of the oral contraceptive – ‘the pill’ – that, for the first time, made birth control a simple matter for millions of women. Lately, he has taken up writing fiction and plays and, in 1998, took one of his plays to the Edinburgh Festival.