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Laboratorios Syntex SA was a pharmaceutical company formed in Mexico City in 1944 by Russell Marker to manufacture therapeutic steroids from the Mexican yams called ''cabeza de negro'' (''Dioscorea mexicana'') and ''Barbasco'' (''Dioscorea composita''). The demand for barbasco by Syntex initiated the Mexican barbasco trade.〔Soto Laveaga, Gabriela (2009). Jungle Laboratories: Mexican peasants, National Projects and the Making of the Pill. Duke University.〕 Syntex chemists synthesized cortisone from diosgenin, a phytosteroid contained in Mexican yams. This synthesis was more economical than the previous Merck & Co. synthesis, which started with bile acids. Syntex was integrated into the Roche group in 1994. ==Prominent researchers== *Russell Marker co-founded the company in 1944. In May 1945, realizing that he was being left out of the company's profits, he left the company. When he took his notebooks, the production was hampered because Marker had done the synthesis himself and had coded the reagent bottles. *George Rosenkranz had studied at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and was conducting pharmaceutical research in Cuba.〔Rosenkranz had fled Nazi Germany to avoid the eventual Holocaust; while in Cuba en route to South America, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor stranded him there. He was able to work there for the duration of the war.〕 He joined Syntex in 1945 to replace Marker. He hired Djerassi in 1949. *Carl Djerassi went to work at Syntex in 1949 as the associate director of chemical research. He remained there through 1951, leaving to join the faculty of the Chemistry Department at Wayne State University (Detroit, Michigan) starting in 1952. *Alejandro Zaffaroni developed procedures for identifying and separating steroids using paper chromatography while studying at the University of Rochester, and joined Syntex as a research biochemist in 1951. He became vice-president in 1956, and was appointed president of Syntex's U.S. subsidiary in Palo Alto, California in 1962. *Luis E. Miramontes moved from UNAM to Syntex in 1950 as a researcher under Djerassi. Under the direction of Djerassi and Rosenkranz, he performed the last step of the first synthesis of an orally highly active progestin on 15 October 1951. The steroid 19-nor-17 alpha-ethynyltestosterone, with the generic name of norethistrone or norethindrone, was the first orally highly active progestin, which led to the development of the first oral contraceptive pills. *Jerzy Rzedowski worked as an explorer botanist. He later became the most prominent plant scientist in Mexico. *Ralph Dorfman Joined the company as a consultant in 1960, eventually serving as President of Syntex Research from 1967–1973 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Syntex」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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