Notes

Another chemist, Sir Robert Robinson,
seemed to be close to synthesizing this compound
himself. Yet, Julian was sure he could
beat Robinson to it. Julian brought over a
friend from Vienna, a chemist named Josef
Pikl, to help him with the project. Together, the
two scientists worked in a frenzy to complete
the synthesis before Robinson. To their disappointment,
Robinson published first, claiming
that he had successfully completed the
synthesis of physostigmine. However, upon
reading Robinson’s paper, Julian and Pikl
thought something looked amiss—the melting
point for one of Robinson’s intermediate compounds
didn’t match its natural counterpart.
For a synthesis to be correct, man-made
compounds must match the natural compounds
in every way. Even something seemingly
as small as the chemical’s melting point
can signal whether researchers correctly synthesized
the intended compound. Julian and
Pikl challenged Robinson’s findings and published
a new paper detailing their own synthesis
of physostigmine, with the melting points
of physostigmine and the intermediates in its
synthesis identical to the natural compounds.
Their synthesis ultimately proved correct.
Lowly beans and other plants would
prove to be the key to the rest of Julian’s
career. However, his success with physostigmine
did not protect him from discrimination.
Finding a job proved difficult, as potential
employers refused to hire Julian when they
learned of his race. He finally landed a job as
director of research at Glidden, a paint and
chemical company based in Chicago. Working at Glidden was a big deal—hardly any AfricanAmerican
chemists worked in the industry in
the 1930s. Julian used his position at Glidden
to investigate the soybean, a plant he was
sure had untapped possibilities.
Over the next few years, he racked up
hundreds of patents for products he coaxed
out of soybean plants, from paper coatings
to protein-rich foods to a fire-fighting spray
called Aero-Foam. Aero-Foam was used by
the U.S. troops during World War II to extinguish
gasoline and oil fires.
His biggest accomplishment came from
a mishap that could have cost him his job.
Water had leaked into a tank of pure soybean
oil that Julian and his colleagues used for
their work. Crystals and sludge had formed in
the oil; Julian and his coworkers assumed the
oil, worth thousands of dollars, was spoiled.
But Julian saw something promising in those
crystals. When he tested them, he found stigmasterol,
a steroid.
Steroids are fat-soluble compounds
made of four fused carbon rings. Usually,
three of the rings have six carbon molecules,
and the fourth has five. There are hundreds of
different steroid molecules, set apart by different
chemical groups
(functional groups)
that hang from the
carbon rings.
Julian was
excited about isolating
stigmasterol, a plant
steroid, because it can
easily be converted to
an animal steroid called progesterone. Progesterone
was used to prevent miscarriage in
pregnant women, but it was very expensive at
the time. Julian’s work, the isolation of stigmasterol
on a large scale, made the synthesis
of progesterone easier and increased its availability
and affordability