Carl Djerassi
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 20 October 2002
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Carl Djerassi was born in Vienna to an Austrian mother and Bulgarian father. Both parents were involved in the medical profession and, growing up surrounded by medical paraphernalia, he assumed that he would become a doctor. For the first four years of his schooling in Austria, he attended a girls' school as the boys school was full. He says "women are much more important than men in my life. I mean, I enjoyed it, I'm not complaining at all!" He didn't start studying science until his mid-teens and the outbreak of war meant a move to America, where he attended a pre-medical course at college. He soon became interested in organic chemistry and focussed on this subject for his PhD.
Whilst working at a pharmaceutical company he was involved in two important discoveries. The synthesis of cortisone from plant material was, at that time, the most competitive and difficult project amongst chemists. Cortisone was considered a wonder drug in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, inflammation and eczema. The other discovery was the creation of a progesterone that could be orally active - aimed at treating menstrual disorders and infertility. It was realised that it could be used as a contraceptive but, as Carl says: "in the 1950s contraception was not high on the priority list. Pharmaceutical companies, with one exception, were not interested in that field. The population explosion and these concepts did not come about until 10 years later". It wasn't until 1960 that it was approved by the FDA as a contraceptive and became the Pill.
Carl spent the next few years working in research and universities. He has also published five novels, three plays, a book of short stories, an autobiography and a memoir and is still writing. He describes a lot of his work as science in fiction - not science fiction - which explores aspects of scientific behaviour and of scientific facts. As he says, "Disguising them in the cloak of fiction, it is possible to illustrate ethical dilemmas that frequently are not raised for reasons of discretion, embarrassment, or fear of retribution".
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Songs on the Death of Children by Gustav Mahler Book: Collected poetry and prose by Wallace Stevens Luxury: A solar powered computer with a secret compartment containing a white powder
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Kirstie Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive for rights reasons |
| 0:06.1 | We've had to shorten the music |
| 0:08.1 | The program was originally broadcast in 2002 and the presenter was Sue Lawley |
| 0:21.0 | My car's the way this week is a scientist half a century ago as an ambitious young chemist and refugee from Nazi Austria |
| 0:28.5 | He made a discovery which was to bring about a fundamental change in our society. He invented the pill |
| 0:34.6 | He was paid only one dollar for the patent |
| 0:36.9 | But his company stock options meant that the boy who turned up penniless in the United States became a multi-millionaire |
| 0:43.8 | He became a distinguished academic too and then in his 60s he began a new career as a writer using novels and plays to explore |
| 0:52.0 | scientific dilemmas. Now in his 80th year and as energetic as ever he says |
| 0:57.7 | I want to be the first working professor aged 100. I've got a chance |
| 1:02.1 | My father didn't die until he was 96 and that was an accident. He is Carl Gerrassi |
| 1:08.5 | You're no stranger than Carl to ambition and |
| 1:12.8 | Determination you've certainly led life at high speed drive is second nature to you, isn't it? |
| 1:17.6 | Yes, that's both good and bad. That's sort of ambition is both a nourishment that makes this sort of work possible |
| 1:23.7 | And I think it's also the poison this desire for name recognition for approval by your peers |
| 1:29.3 | The fact that you think you never have enough time for all the things that you want to do makes you impatient and at times not very |
| 1:35.9 | Prodiant, but to that extent it's not surprising really that you were only |
| 1:40.9 | What 28 I think when you made this life-changing discovery? |
| 1:44.5 | I mean you'd race through your education. You were ahead of everybody because your V&E's |
| 1:49.4 | Education had been so good, but the most fascinating thing I think about it is that you are going to use it for other things |
| 1:56.0 | Not for countries. Well, progesterone the natural hormone, which then was isolated and synthesized by chemists in |
| 2:02.2 | 1930s was used in medicine |
... |
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