Star-studded Cast Get Heritage Day Awards

The list of awards handed out at the Chemical Heritage Foundation's annual Heritage Day in mid-June grows larger with each passing year.

It all started with the Othmer Gold Medal in 1997. Since 2002, CHF's Heritage Day has come to include the American Institute of Chemists' (AIC) Gold Medal and the Chemists' Club of New York's Winthrop-Sears Award. This year, for the first time at Heritage Day, the Commercial Development & Marketing Association (CDMA) presented its Award for Executive Excellence at the Philadelphia-based foundation.

The day began around noon with the Othmer Gold Medal reception and luncheon in honor of Huntsman Corp. founder Jon M. Huntsman. After a short break, ACS Executive Director and CEO Madeleine Jacobs received the CDMA award. Then Carl Djerassi, novelist, emeritus professor of chemistry at Stanford University, and one of three Syntex scientists responsible for the first synthesis of a steroid oral contraceptive, received the AIC award. In the evening, Syntex scientists George Rosenkranz and Alejandro Zaffaroni shared the Winthrop-Sears Award at a dinner that honored their roles in steroid contraceptive and drug development.

In opening remarks to the 200 or so guests gathered at the Othmer Gold Medal luncheon to honor the founder of the chemical, plastics, and packaging giant Huntsman Corp., CHF President Arnold Thackray said: "We live in the greatest age of scientific discovery," and yet "we are surrounded by fear and ignorance of what science and chemistry does." He hoped people would recognize CHF as "a center people can turn to for encouragement and a sane perspective" on the accomplishments of chemists--among them recipients of the day's awards.

Huntsman told his audience that the chemical industry faced challenges today he never had to consider when he started his business. Among those challenges are foreign competition, wild energy cycles, consumer misunderstanding, political pressure to move offshore, industry consolidation, and shrinking exports. He was particularly critical of oil and natural gas suppliers and said they "must take note of the carnage they've wrought on the chemical industry while reaping record energy profits." He added, "We have to learn to live together where everyone wins."

ACS's Jacobs asked her audience of about 150 to take inspiration from a 1933 Cole Porter tune, "Experiment." Quoting from the song's lyrics, she urged her listeners to "make it your model day and night." She added that "truly successful people experiment" and recounted some of the successful and unsuccessful experiments of her own career as editor-in-chief of C&EN.

Djerassi did not talk about his scientific successes, but rather his latest literary challenges, and explained: "When I turned 63, I decided to address a wider public afraid of science." Djerassi treated his audience to a few short snippets of dialogue from his 2000 play, "An Immaculate Misconception." A video monitor displayed the mechanics of an in vitro fertilization procedure as Djerassi and his wife's prerecorded voices read lines from the play. The audience also heard a segment of his play "Oxygen" (written with Roald Hoffmann) translated into rap by hip-hop artist Erik Weiner.

Wrapping up the day at a dinner that ran well into the evening, Rosenkranz, who headed research and was also CEO of Syntex, and Zaffaroni, one-time president of Syntex Research Institute and founder of Alza Corp., recounted their careers. They remembered fondly the close relationships that developed between themselves and Djerassi in the 1950s at the small Mexican chemical company Syntex. In separate speeches, they recounted the discoveries that turned Syntex into a major pharmaceutical company that was eventually bought by Roche for $5.3 billion in 1994.