Leo Sternbach (May 7, 1908 – September 28, 2005) was a Polish American chemist who is credited with first synthesizing
benzodiazepines, the main class of
tranquilizer
A tranquilizer is a drug that is designed for the treatment of anxiety, fear, tension, agitation, and disturbances of the mind, specifically to reduce states of anxiety and tension.
Etymology
Tranquilizer, as a term, was first used by F.F. Yonk ...
s.
Background and family
![Opatija012](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Opatija012.jpg)
Sternbach was born on May 7, 1908, in
Opatija
Opatija (; it, Abbazia; german: Sankt Jakobi) is a List of cities and towns in Croatia, town and a municipality in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County in western Croatia. The traditional seaside resort on the Kvarner Gulf is known for its Mediterranean ...
,
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen ...
,
Austro-Hungarian Empire, to an upper middle class Jewish family. He had a younger brother, Giusi.
[ Ha-Kol (Glasilo Židovske zajednice u Hrvatskoj); Sanja Dukić; Povratak velikana u rodnu Opatiju; stranica 40, 41; broj 94, svibanj / lipanj 2006.] His father Michael Abracham Sternbach was from the Polish city of
Przemyśl in
Galicia (then part of Austria-Hungary), and his mother Piroska (née Cohn) Sternbach was from
Orosháza
Orosháza is a city situated in the westernmost part of Békés county, Hungary, on the Békés ridge bordered by the rivers Maros and Körös. Orosháza is an important cultural, educational and recreational centre of the region.
Main sigh ...
, Hungary. Sternbach's parents met and married in Opatija where they both lived. The family lived in modest conditions, in a rented four-room apartment on the third floor of the "Vila Jadran" (Villa Adriatic), near the pharmacy owned by Sternbach's father. Sternbach attended a private German school in Opatija until it was closed in 1920, and—since he could not speak Italian—continued his schooling in
Villach
Villach (; sl, Beljak; it, Villaco; fur, Vilac) is the seventh-largest city in Austria and the second-largest in the federal state of Carinthia. It is an important traffic junction for southern Austria and the whole Alpe-Adria region. , the p ...
,
Graz, and
Bielitz
Bielsko (german: Bielitz, cs, Bílsko) was until 1950 an independent town situated in Cieszyn Silesia, Poland. In 1951 it was joined with Biała Krakowska to form the new town of Bielsko-Biała. Bielsko constitutes the western part of that to ...
. In 1926, Sternbach moved with his family to
Krakow, Poland. In the same year, his younger brother died of
scarlet fever, at the age of fifteen.
[ Ha-Kol (Glasilo Židovske zajednice u Hrvatskoj); Sanja Dukić; Opatijsko djetinjstvo dr. Lea Sternbacha; stranica 42, 43, 44; broj 94, svibanj / lipanj 2006.]
Education and career
He received his master's degree in pharmacy in 1929 and his doctoral degree in organic chemistry in 1931 from the
Jagiellonian University in Krakow. In 1937, he received a scholarship from Feliks Wislicki Foundation. He moved to Vienna and then to Zurich where he continued his researches started in Cracow. In
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, he worked with Wolfgang Joseph Pauli (Sr.) and
Sigmund Fränkel; after which he worked with
Leopold Ružička
Leopold Ružička (; born Lavoslav Stjepan Ružička; 13 September 1887 – 26 September 1976) was a Croatian-Swiss scientist and joint winner of the 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes" "including t ...
at the
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich
(colloquially)
, former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule
, image = ETHZ.JPG
, image_size =
, established =
, type = Public
, budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021)
, rector = Günther Dissertori
, president = Joël Mesot
, a ...
. When war started, he was still in Switzerland. His mother, Hungarian born, survived hidden by Poles. While in
Basel
, french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese
, neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...
on June 1, 1940, he started his career at
Hoffmann-La Roche where he worked until 2003. He married Herta Kreuzer. In 1941, he moved to the United States to work at Hoffmann-La Roche in
Nutley, New Jersey, thus escaping the Nazis.
While working for
Hoffmann-La Roche in
Nutley, New Jersey, Sternbach did significant work on new drugs. He is credited with the discovery of
chlordiazepoxide
Chlordiazepoxide, trade name Librium among others, is a sedative and hypnotic medication of the benzodiazepine class; it is used to treat anxiety, insomnia and symptoms of withdrawal from alcohol and other drugs.
Chlordiazepoxide has a medium t ...
(Librium),
diazepam
Diazepam, first marketed as Valium, is a medicine of the benzodiazepine family that acts as an anxiolytic. It is commonly used to treat a range of conditions, including anxiety, seizures, alcohol withdrawal syndrome, muscle spasms, insomnia, ...
(Valium),
flurazepam
Flurazepam (marketed under the brand names Dalmane and Dalmadorm) is a drug which is a benzodiazepine derivative. It possesses anxiolytic, anticonvulsant, hypnotic, sedative and skeletal muscle relaxant properties. It produces a metabolite w ...
(Dalmane),
nitrazepam
Nitrazepam, sold under the brand name Mogadon among others, is a hypnotic drug of the benzodiazepine class used for short-term relief from severe, disabling anxiety and insomnia. It also has sedative (calming) properties, as well as amnestic (i ...
(Mogadon),
flunitrazepam
Flunitrazepam, also known as Rohypnol among other names, is a benzodiazepine used to treat severe insomnia and assist with anesthesia. As with other hypnotics, flunitrazepam has been advised to be prescribed only for short-term use or by thos ...
(Rohypnol),
clonazepam
Clonazepam, sold under the brand names Klonopin and Rivotril, is a medication used to prevent and treat seizures, panic disorder, anxiety disorders, and the movement disorder known as akathisia. It is a tranquilizer of the benzodiazepine class ...
(Klonopin), and
trimethaphan (Arfonad). Librium, based on the R0 6-690 compound discovered by Sternbach in 1956, was approved for use in 1960. In 1963, its improved version, Valium, was released and became astonishingly popular: between 1969 and 1982, it was the most prescribed drug in America, with over 2.3 billion doses sold in its peak year of 1978. With
Moses Wolf Goldberg, Sternbach also developed "the first commercially applicable" method for synthesizing
biotin.
Sternbach held 241 patents, and his discoveries helped to turn Roche into a
pharmaceutical industry
The pharmaceutical industry discovers, develops, produces, and markets drugs or pharmaceutical drugs for use as medications to be administered to patients (or self-administered), with the aim to cure them, vaccinate them, or alleviate symptoms. ...
giant. He did not become wealthy from his discoveries, but he was happy; he treated chemistry as a passion and said, "I always did just what I wanted to do". He was active in his career until the age of 95. Sternbach was a longtime resident of
Upper Montclair, New Jersey
Upper Montclair is a census-designated place (CDP), unincorporated community and neighborhood within Montclair in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population for the CDP was 11,565. , from 1943 to 2003. He then moved to
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he died in 2005.
Legacy
A book ''Good chemistry: The life and legacy of Valium inventor Leo Sternbach'' was published by McGraw-Hill in 2004.
Sternbach's uncle, Leon Sternbach, the brother of Sternbach's father Michael, was a professor of classical philology at Jagiellonian University. He was murdered in 1940 in the Nazi
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoner ...
as the result of the Nazi action against Polish academic teachers called
Sonderaktion Krakau
''Sonderaktion Krakau'' was a German operation against professors and academics of the Jagiellonian University and other universities in German-occupied Kraków, Poland, at the beginning of World War II. It was carried out as part of the much bro ...
. His killer was
Gustav Sorge.
He is present in the
New Jersey Inventor's Hall of Fame; and was inducted into the
National Inventors Hall of Fame
The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a U.S. patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also oper ...
in February 2005, a few months before his death. Sternbach is a member of the Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sternbach, Leo Henryk
1908 births
2005 deaths
People from Opatija
Austro-Hungarian Jews
Jagiellonian University alumni
Polish emigrants to the United States
Hoffmann-La Roche people
20th-century American inventors