Carl Djerassi (US) developed the modern contraceptive pill as a young researcher working for Syntex Laboratories in Mexico City, in 1951.

Born in pre-war Vienna, Djerassi fled the Nazis in 1938, arriving in New York aged 16 and penniless. After graduating from Kenyon College in Ohio, he obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin. Currently over 80 million women world-wide take an oral contraceptive. Djerassi was also part of a team that succeeded in isolating and synthesising one of the first antihistamines. The Pill celebrated it’s 40th anniversary in May 2000 when it was estimated one million women around the world rely on it for contraception.