Woodward Opens Road for Total Synthesis of Cortisone

The way has been cleared for a possible total synthesis of cortisone, the new drug used in treating arthritis.

Robert B. Woodward, professor of Chemistry, will read a paper before The Chemical Society of London tonight announcing that he and a research team of four men have completed the first total synthesis of a complete steroid.

Steroids are a large group of natural organic substances which have in common a nucleus which includes four rings of carbon atoms. Among the complete steroids are androsterone and testosterone (the male sex hormones) and cortisone, which has recently been used very effectively in the treatment of arthritis, rheumatic fever, and burns.

Many ways have been worked out already for converting one steroid into another.

The starting materials in such interconversions are frequently in limited supply.

Now, with Woodward's total laboratory synthesis of a steroid from coal tar, it is felt that the starting materials in the interconversions and consequently the desired steroids, will be more available.

Woodward cautioned that no medically active steroids have been synthesized as yet and that the processes already developed may not prove commercially practicable.