Leopold Ružička

Leopold Ružička was a Swiss-Croatian chemist whose work on polymethylenes, higher terpenes, and sex hormones earned the 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Testosterone: A steroid hormone that supports male reproductive development and functions. Ružička and colleagues synthesized testosterone in 1935, clarifying its chemical structure.
Ring-closing reaction: A chemical reaction that joins the ends of a molecule to form a ring. Ružička used ring formation to investigate large cyclic compounds and their structures.
Vukovar: A city in eastern Croatia, located at the confluence of the Vuka and Danube rivers. Ružička was born there in 1887, when it was part of Austria-Hungary.
Tadeus Reichstein: A Polish-Swiss chemist who studied steroid hormones and received the 1950 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Reichstein’s group and Ružička’s group independently synthesized testosterone in 1935.
Adolf Windaus: A German chemist who studied sterols and vitamins and received the 1928 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Windaus’s sterol research complements Ružička’s work on terpenes and steroid chemistry.
Androsterone: A steroid hormone and metabolite of testosterone found in humans and other mammals. Ružička’s group established its structure and synthesized it in 1934.
Ozonolysis: A reaction that cleaves carbon–carbon double bonds using ozone. This method helped determine the positions of double bonds in terpene structures.
ETH Zurich: A public research university in Zurich specializing in science, engineering, and technology. Ružička studied and later built his research career at this institution.
Adolf Butenandt: A German biochemist who isolated sex hormones and shared the 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Butenandt shared the prize with Ružička for research on sex hormones.
Robert Robinson: A British organic chemist who received the 1947 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on plant products. Robinson pursued natural-product structure and synthesis through a distinct research program.

Linked from 3 pages

Otto WallachRelated: Ružička extended the structural study of natural products beyond Wallach’s foundational terpene work.