Djerassi is best known as is the "father" (or as he prefers, the "mother") of the Pill.
This month marks the 50th anniversary of America's Food and Drug Administration approval of the first oral contraceptive.
But the Pill was actually born almost a decade earlier, in 1951, when young Carl Djerassi synthesized progestin norethindrone, a contraceptive that could be popped in the mouth and swallowed - a novel idea at the time. Syntex, the firm Djerassi worked for, paid him one dollar for his right to the patent, but he made his fortune anyway on company stock. In the last six decades, he has added another thousand patents to his name, written a collection of novels, staged plays, and made a name for himself as an art collector, all the while teaching chemistry and ethics at Stanford University.
In this week's Inspired Minds talks to about that moment when he and his team first synthesized progestin and his work as an author of novels and plays.
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