The breadth of Carl Djerassi's scientific work

One measure of the diversity of Carl Djerassi's work can be gained from a simple diversity analysis of the top 50 of his most cited papers - he wrote more than 1200. The articles range from pure synthetic methodology to novel natural product isolation and structure determination to marine steroid biosynthesis to circular dichroism to artificial intelligence to mechanistic organic chemistry.

Here's a sampling based on a listing of those top 50 in Scifinder. And this of course does not even consider his very substantial second career in the arts and humanities. A towering intellect and a role model for the rest of us to emulate. 

Mass spectrometry in structural and stereochemical problems. XXXII. Pentacyclic triterpenes

• By Budzikiewicz, H.; Wilson, J. M.; Djerassi, Carl
• From Journal of the American Chemical Society (1963), 85(22), 3688-99.  |  Language: Unavailable, Database: CAPLUS

Minor and trace sterols in marine invertebrates.  26.  Isolation and structure elucidation of nine new 5α,8α-epidoxy sterols from four marine organisms

• By Gunatilaka, A. A. Leslie; Gopichand, Yalamanchili; Schmitz, Francis J.; Djerassi, Carl
• From Journal of Organic Chemistry (1981), 46(19), 3860-6.  |  Language: English, Database: CAPLUS

Structure and the optical rotatory dispersion of saturated ketones

• By Moffitt, William; Woodward, R. B.; Moscowitz, A.; Klyne, W.; Djerassi, Carl
• From Journal of the American Chemical Society (1961), 83, 4013-18.  |  Language: Unavailable, Database: CAPLUS

Organic sulfur compounds. VI. Cyclic ethylene and trimethylene hemithioketals

• By Djerassi, Carl; Gorman, Marvin
• From Journal of the American Chemical Society (1953), 75, 3704-8.  |  Language: Unavailable, Database: CAPLUS

Oxidations with ruthenium tetroxide

• By Djerassi, Carl; Engle, Robert R.
• From Journal of the American Chemical Society (1953), 75, 3838-40.  |  Language: Unavailable, Database: CAPLUS

Steroids from sponges

• By Sheikh, Younus M.; Djerassi, Carl
• From Tetrahedron (1974), 30(23/24), 4095-103.  |  Language: English, Database: CAPLUS

Biosynthetic studies of marine lipids.  41.  Sponge sterols:  origin and biosynthesis

• By Djerassi, Carl; Silva, Christopher J.
• From Accounts of Chemical Research (1991), 24(12), 371-8.  |  Language: English, Database: CAPLUS

Brominations with pyridine hydrobromide perbromide, C5H5N.HBr.Br2

• By Djerassi, Carl; Scholz, Caesar R.
• From Journal of the American Chemical Society (1948), 70, 417-18.  |  Language: Unavailable, Database: CAPLUS

Mechanism of hydride reduction of 1-alkyn-3-ols

• By Grant, Barbara; Djerassi, Carl
• From Journal of Organic Chemistry (1974), 39(7), 968-70.  |  Language: English, Database: CAPLUS

Applications of artificial intelligence for chemical inference.  I.  Number of possible organic compounds.  Acyclic structures containing carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen

• By Lederberg, Joshua; Sutherland, Georgia L.; Buchanan, Bruce G.; Feigenbaum, Edward A.; Robertson, Alexander V.; Duffield, Alan M.; Djerassi, Carl
• From Journal of the American Chemical Society (1969), 91(11), 2973-6.  |  Language: English, Database: CAPLUS

Structure of the antibiotic methymycin

• By Djerassi, Carl; Zderic, John A.
• From Journal of the American Chemical Society (1956), 78, 6390-5.  |  Language: Unavailable, Database: CAPLUS

Carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance spectra of acyclic aliphatic amines

• By Eggert, Hanne; Djerassi, Carl
• From Journal of the American Chemical Society (1973), 95(11), 3710-18.  |  Language: English, Database: CAPLUS

Alkaloids. LII. The alkaloids from Vallesia dichotoma

• By Walser, A.; Djerassi, Carl
• From Helvetica Chimica Acta (1965), 48(2), 391-404.  |  Language: German, Database: CAPLUS