Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian was an influential African American chemist whose pioneering work in organic chemistry significantly advanced the fields of medicine and agriculture. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1899, he faced racial discrimination throughout his education and career but overcame these barriers to achieve remarkable success. Julian earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry from DePauw College and later completed a master's degree at Harvard University. He received his doctorate at the University of Vienna, where he conducted significant research on alkaloids.
Julian's career included notable positions at Howard University and Glidden Company, where he made groundbreaking contributions, such as synthesizing the alkaloid physostigmine and developing steroid hormones from soy products. His innovations not only made crucial medications more accessible but also led to various applications for soy proteins. In 1964, he founded the Julian Research Institute and continued his work until his death in 1975. Throughout his life, Julian received numerous accolades, including the NAACP's Spingarn Medal and election to the National Academy of Sciences, cementing his legacy as a trailblazer in chemistry and an inspiration to future generations.
Subject Terms
Percy Lavon Julian
- Born: April 11, 1899
- Birthplace: Montgomery, Alabama
- Died: April 19, 1975
- Place of death: Waukegan, Illinois
Chemist, inventor, and educator
Julian made a critical scientific breakthrough by discovering a way to synthesize natural products such as steroid hormones and the alkaloid physostigmine. He founded a company to exploit some of his discoveries. Improved synthesis of steroids allowed the price of these medically important substances to be significantly reduced.
Areas of achievement: Invention; Medicine; Science and technology
Early Life
Percy Lavon Julian (PUR-see luh-VAHN JOO-lee-uhn) was the eldest of six children born to James and Elizabeth Julian in Montgomery, Alabama. Julian attended segregated school until eighth grade, then was sent to a private school because the public schools did not go beyond eighth grade for African Americans. He graduated from the State Normal School for Negroes in Montgomery in 1916 at the age of seventeen. At DePauw College in Greencastle, Indiana, Julian took remedial courses as well as his degree requirements. He earned Phi Beta Kappa honors on his way to his bachelor’s degree in chemistry (granted in 1920) and was class valedictorian. Unable to attend graduate school, Julian became a teacher at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. After two years at Fisk, he was awarded an Austin Fellowship to Harvard University, where he earned a master’s degree in chemistry after one year. Harvard denied him a teaching fellowship on racial grounds, preventing him from staying on for the doctorate. After a stint at West Virginia State, Julian became department chairman at Howard University. In 1929, he was awarded a fellowship sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation that allowed him to study at the University of Vienna, Austria, under Professor Ernst Späth. Julian received his doctorate in 1931 with a thesis titled The Study of Certain Alkaloids and New Heterocyclic Free Radicals.
Life’s Work
After returning from Europe in 1931, Julian served as chairman of the Chemistry Department at Howard University for two years, then returned to DePauw. There, Julian and Josef Pikl, a coworker from Vienna, completed a synthesis of the alkaloid physostigmine. This substance occurs naturally in the calabar bean, an African plant, and was isolated in the nineteenth century. Physostigmine is used in the treatment of glaucoma, myasthenia gravis, and nerve gas poisoning. Julian and Pikl’s scientific breakthrough attracted attention throughout the chemistry community, particularly because Julian had corrected an error in the published work of Robert Robinson, one of the world’s most prominent organic chemists. Julian was denied the department chair at DePauw for racial reasons, and in 1936 he accepted a position at Glidden, a company headquartered near Chicago. Julian headed the soy products division for eighteen years and was the first African American to hold such a position. His accomplishments included syntheses of cortisone and progesterone from the plant sterols in soy. He perfected the isolation of soy protein and found new uses for it, such as Aerofoam, a product used the military used to fight gasoline fires during World War II.
By 1953, management at Glidden wanted Julian to abandon work on steroids and concentrate on the company’s other interests. Julian left Glidden in 1954. He (and others) saw potential in the Mexican yam as a source of diosgenin, a sterol that can be converted into steroids. He founded Julian Laboratories in Oak Park, Illinois, and opened a factory in Mexico where the yams could be cultivated and the sterols returned to the United States for conversion to medicinal products. In 1964, he sold the Mexican operation for more than two million dollars. That year, he founded the Julian Research Institute and Julian Associates, which he managed for the rest of his life. On April 19, 1975, Julian died of liver cancer.
Significance
Julian’s experimental work in chemistry showed how the steroid hormones progesterone, testosterone, and cortisone could be made inexpensively from readily available natural sources. This breakthrough made arthritis treatment available to many patients. His synthesis of physostigmine made the compound more widely available for medical uses. In addition to his achievements in basic science, Julian made valuable progress in discovering uses for soy proteins. Julian received many honors, including the 1947 Spingarn Medal of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), eighteen honorary degrees, Chicagoan of the Year (1950), and election to the National Academy of Sciences (1973). He received more than one hundred U.S. patents and wrote or cowrote numerous scientific articles. Throughout his life, he endured racial prejudice and even hate crimes, such as arson and dynamite attacks on his home in Oak Park, Illinois. Julian left an inspirational legacy of achievement in spite of racism and discrimination.
Bibliography
Stille, Darlene R. Percy Lavon Julian: Pioneering Chemist. Minneapolis, Minn.: Compass Point Books, 2009. Emphasizes racial attitudes overcome by Julian and his many achievements. For high school readers.
Wang, Linda. “Percy Julian, the Movie.” Chemical and Engineering News 84, no. 40 (October 2, 2006): 52-53. The journal of the American Chemical Society details the making of PBS’s Nova special on Julian. Includes biography.
Witkop, Bernhard. “Biographical Memoirs: Percy Lavon Julian.” The National Academies Press, September 9, 2008. http://www.nap.edu/html/biomems/pjulian.html. Particularly good account of Julian’s days in Vienna and his steroid work. Includes lists of Julian’s patents, writings, honorary degrees, and awards.