Leopold Stephen Ružička
Ružička, Leopold Stephen or Lavoslav Stjepan 1887–1976, Swiss chemist, b. Croatia (then in Austria-Hungary), Dr.Ing. Technische Hochschule, Karlsruhe, Germany, 1910. Ružička was a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zürich, from 1912 to 1926. In 1926, he became a professor at the Univ. of Utrecht in the Netherlands, where he taught until 1929. He returned to ETH in 1929 and remained on the faculty there until 1957, when he became a professor emeritus. Ružička shared the 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Adolf Butenandt for his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes. Ruzicka initially determined the chemical structure of terpenes, which are found in the essential oils of plants and have a variety of applications including in medicines and perfumes. He then went on establish methods for the synthesis of the male hormones androsterone and testosterone.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Chemistry: Biographies