DISCOVERY
His scientific work is very extensive, covers numerous written publications and about 40 national and international patents in different areas such as organic chemistry, pharmaceutical chemistry, petrochemical and chemistry of atmospheric pollutants.
Among his many contributions to Mexican and universal science, the synthesis stands out on October 15, 1951, when Miramontes was only 26 years old, norethisterone, which is the active compound base of the first synthetic oral contraceptive, best known as a contraceptive pill.
Norethisterone is the first orally active progestin, which to this day is one of the active ingredients of oral contraceptives taken by millions of women almost everywhere in the world. For this reason he is considered the inventor of the contraceptive pill. Historians agree that the invention or first synthesis is due to Miramontes. Luis E. Miramontes received the patent for the compound with Carl Djerassi and George Rosenkranz, from the Mexican chemical company Syntex S.A.
He was born on March 16, 1925 in Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico, was a Mexican scientist, chemist and inventor and died in Mexico City on September 13, 2004. He studied high school at the National Preparatory School of the UNAM, Bachelor of Chemistry at the UNAM. He was a professor at the Faculty of Chemistry of the UNAM, Director and professor of the School of Chemistry of the Universidad Iberoamericana, and deputy director of Basic Research of the Mexican Petroleum Institute (IMP). He was also a member of several scientific societies, including the American Chemical Society, the Mexican Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
This discovery had and still has revolutionary consequences for the health and behavior of millions of people around the globe. For UNAM, it also had an enormous impact since to continue with the chemical research in this promising area, Syntex decidedly supported the consolidation of the Institute of Chemistry of the UNAM.
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However, the contraceptive pill represents much more than a revolution in contraception and in the history of pharmaceuticals. Many people consider that the use of the pill is the catalyst for the sexual and social revolution that took place in the following decades.
