The Pioneer Member
Although critics cite the National Academy of Sciences for its apparent lack of minority members, it must be noted that in 1973, African American chemist Percy Lavon Julian was elected to NAS. Julian, who died in 1975 at the age of 76, was noted for having synthesized and identified physostigmine, a drug used to treat glaucoma, to improve memory in Alzheimer's patients and as an antidote to nerve gas. He also devised a way of filtering the chemicals in soybean oil to allow quantity production of hormones for medical applications.
Julian was born in 1899 in Montgomery, Ala., the grandson of a slave. He earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry from DePauw University, became an instructor at Fisk University and later received a master's in chemistry from Harvard and in 1931 received his doctorate from the University of Vienna, Austria.
He returned to DePauw and in 1933 conducted the research that led to the synthesis of physostigmine. Julian left DePauw in 1936 to become director of research of the Soya Products Division of the Glidden Company in Chicago.
An entrepreneur as well as a scientist, in 1953 he founded Julian Laboratories and later Julian Associates Inc. He also founded the Julian Research Institute. He acquired more than 115 patents, including one for a fire-extinguishing foam that was used on oil and gasoline fires during World War II.
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