biography
| name: |
Julian, Percy (Lavon)
|
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1899–1975)
|
| biography:
| Chemist and inventor, born in Montgomery, Alabama, USA. The grandson of a former slave, he studied at DePauw University, IN, and at Harvard, then taught chemistry at Howard University. Denied a professorship at Harvard on account of his race, he returned to DePauw. There in 1935 he synthesized the drug physostigmine, used to treat glaucoma. In 1936 he became director of research for the soya products division of the Glidden Co in Chicago. He and his associates developed scores of soya derivatives, notably cortisone, used in the treatment of arthritis and other afflictions. He left Glidden in 1953 to establish Julian Laboratories. From 1964 until his death he headed the Julian Research Institute, and served as consultant to the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases. |
|
|
