NOVA To Air Two-hour Documentary On Pioneering African American Chemist

Main Category: Biology / Biochemistry
Also Included In: Arthritis / Rheumatology
Article Date: 17 Jan 2007 - 19:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

The remarkable life story of pioneering African American chemist Percy Julian is the subject of a two-hour PBS/NOVA documentary to air Feb. 6 during Black History Month. The grandson of Alabama slaves, Julian won world-wide fame for his accomplishments in organic chemistry, especially in the synthesis of medicinal drugs.

Entitled "Forgotten Genius," the film, in the words of Jim Shoffner, Ph.D., a former member of the Board of Directors of the American Chemical Society, honors a man who "was an inspirational and motivational figure for many young men and women. Although this was especially true for students and researchers of color, it was more generally true for all, no matter what their race, ethnicity or gender."

Percy Lavon Julian was born in Montgomery, Ala., on April 11, 1899, the son of a railway clerk. Julian's schooling was spotty in the segregated South of the early 20th century. Even so, he was accepted at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., where he excelled, graduating in 1920 as class valedictorian.

Julian chose chemistry as a career, but he was discouraged from seeking admission to graduate school because of racial prejudice. Instead, he took the advice of an advisor and accepted a position as an instructor of chemistry at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn. After two years at Fisk, Julian won an Austin Fellowship to Harvard where he received his M.A. in 1923.

In 1929 Julian won a Rockefeller Foundation grant, which he used to earn his doctorate in natural products chemistry at the University of Vienna in 1931. Julian returned to DePauw University in 1933 as a research fellow. It was at DePauw in 1935 that Julian completed research on the synthesis of physostigmine, a drug used in the treatment of glaucoma. This work established Julian as world-renowned chemist, but he was denied a faculty position at DePauw.

DePauw's decision forced Julian out of the university and into the corporate world. He accepted a position with the Glidden Company in Chicago as director of research for the Soya Product Division. Over the next 18 years the results of Julian's research led to numerous patents and successful products for Glidden, among them a fire-retardant foam used widely in World War II to extinguish gasoline fires. His biomedical research paved the way for the production of large quantities of inexpensive synthetic progesterone from soybeans. He also developed a synthetic version of cortisone, used to relieve the pain of rheumatoid arthritis. Natural cortisone was extremely expensive but Julian's discovery of a soy-based substitute helped millions of arthritis sufferers find relief at a reasonable price.

In 1953, he established Julian Laboratories which he sold eight years later for $2 million. In 1973, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Julian died on April 19, 1975. (For more on Percy Julian's life, please visit the National Historic Chemical Web site at http://chemistry.org/landmarks/julian.html.)

"Forgotten Genius" had financial support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Science Foundation as well as seed money from the American Chemical Society. Anne O'Brien, Ph.D., a current member of the ACS Board of Directors, says "the chance to honor this American chemist, to offer Dr. Julian as a role model…. and to have that message reach an audience as large as NOVA's, was an opportunity not to be missed."

###

The American Chemical Society -- the world's largest scientific society -- is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

Contact: Judah Ginsberg
American Chemical Society

• Additional
• References
• Citations