Dr. Luis Miramontes was born in Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico in 1925. As a child, he was raised by the women in his family, his mother and his aunts. One of his most notable influences was his aunt Maria Dolores Cardenas, who served in Pancho Villa’s army. She instilled a love of science in Luis and encouraged him to pursue it as a career. Miramontes went on to attend the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) to study Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.
As an undergraduate student, Miramontes caught the eye of a Mexican pharmaceutical company called Syntex and was invited to complete his undergraduate thesis in their labs under the tutelage of Carl Dejerassi and George Rosenkranz. At the time, Syntex began working with the hormone progesterone as a form of birth control, which required large doses to be injected in order to be effective. In order to overcome this, he and his mentors developed a synthetic form of progesterone, which they named norethisterone (progestin). Importantly, he was the first one to synthesize norethisterone in the laboratory in 1951, which was later confirmed by others – Dejerassi and Rosenkranz. The synthesis of norethindrone set the foundation for the production for oral contraceptives and was 8 times more effective than its progesterone predecessor. Miramontes, Dejerassi, and Rosenkranz are all listed as co-inventors on the 1956 patent for norethisterone.
He obtained his PhD at UNAM (1956) and became a founding researcher at the Institute of Chemistry. He continued studying chemistry and broadened his scope into organic chemistry and even petro chemistry. This led to a position as Deputy Director of Research of the Mexican Institute of Petroleum (IMP). He developed processes to make gasoline exhaust into harmless byproducts. He held memberships in the American Chemical Society and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers throughout his career. He won numerous awards in his career and died in 2004.
References:
- https://quimica.unam.mx/la-pildora-anticonceptiva-aporte-revolucionario-del-egresado-de-la-fq-luis-ernesto-miramontes/
- https://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378%2805%2900859-8/pdf
- https://www.sciencenews.org/article/luis-miramontes-chemistry-birth-control-pill-ingredient-sexual-revolution
- https://cisneros.columbian.gwu.edu/leaders-luis-miramontes-healthcare
- https://www.visionlearning.com/en/library/Scientists-and-Research/58/Luis-E.-Miramontes/232
