Percy Julian
11 April 1899 – 19 April 1975
Percy Lavon Julian was an American chemist who pioneered the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs from plants, including the first total synthesis of physostigmine and large-scale production of steroids from soybeans. Overcoming pervasive racial discrimination, he became one of the first African Americans elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Percy Julian.
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- Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Overlapped 76 years →
Life events
Percy Lavon Julian was born in Montgomery, Alabama, the son of a railway mail clerk and the grandson of enslaved people.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgJulian graduated first in his class at DePauw University in Indiana, despite having to take remedial courses and face racial exclusion.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe completed an M.S. at Harvard but was not permitted to pursue a doctorate there because of his race.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgJulian earned his doctorate in chemistry in Austria under Ernst Späth.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAt DePauw, Julian and Josef Pikl achieved the first total synthesis of physostigmine, a drug used to treat glaucoma.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgJulian married sociologist Anna Roselle Johnson, with whom he had two children.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgJulian led soya products research at Glidden in Chicago, developing industrial and pharmaceutical products from soybeans, including steroid intermediates.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe established his own company producing synthetic steroid intermediates, which he later sold to Smith Kline in 1961.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgJulian became the second African American elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgJulian died of liver cancer at age 76 in Waukegan, Illinois.
Source: en.wikipedia.org