Percy Julian (1899-1975), American chemist. Julian received his bachelors degree from DePauw University, Indiana, in 1920, and his masters from Harvard University, in 1923. Due to racial prejudice he was unable to complete a PhD in the USA, but received a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship to study at the University of Vienna, Austria, where he was awarded a PhD in 1931. Julian is best known for his pioneering work in the chemical synthesis of drugs from plants. After returning to DePauw in 1932 he worked with Josef Pikl to successfully synthesise physostigmine, a chemical found in Calabar beans that is used as a drug to treat glaucoma. In 1936 he became chief chemist at the Glidden Company where his work on soy proteins led him to the synthesis of human sex hormones and other steroids from plant sterols. In 1954 he founded his own company that synthesised steroid intermediaries from Mexican yams. In 1973 he became the second African American to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.