Carl Djerassi est né le 29 octobre 1923 à Vienne, Autriche. Il était marié à Diane Middlebrook, Norma Lundholm et Virginia Jeremiah. Il est mort le 30 janvier 2015 en Californie, États-Unis.
Prefessor emeritus of chemistry at Stanford University who in 1951 together with Mexican Luis E. Miramontes and Hungarian George Rosenkranz, participated in the invention of progestin norethindrone, which became the first successful oral contraceptive widely known as the pill.
