Otto Wichterle

Otto Wichterle ( born October 27, 1913 in Prostějov; † August 18, 1998 in Prague) was a Czech chemist. He is considered the inventor of the modern ( soft ) contact lenses.

Life

Wichterle studied at the Chemical Institute of the Technical University of Prague. He received his doctorate in 1936 and initially remained at the University until the Nazis closed the university in 1939. Wichterle joined the research department of the Bata factories in Zlín, where he studied for the processing of polyamides and caprolactams especially. In 1941 he invented with his team a synthetic fiber with the name silon. The invention but was initially kept secret and reached the industrial production until ten years later. 1942 Wichterle was briefly imprisoned by the Gestapo.

After the Second World War Wichterle returned back to the university, received his doctorate with a thesis on organic chemistry and wrote a fundamental textbook on inorganic chemistry. In 1952 he was appointed Dean of the newly established Institute of Chemical Technology, but in 1958 removed from that post in the wake of a political purge.

Just one year later elected him the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, to which he belonged since 1955 to the Board of a new Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry. At this institute, he continued his research in the polymerization of lactams and processing of hydrophilic gels. In 1953, he and the chemist Drahoslav Lím a method for producing a soft polymer ( 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate, in short: HEMA) patented.

Because of the establishment of the Institute lasted long, Wichterle had to perform at home a large part of his experiments. 1961, where he succeeded with a home-made apparatus, which he had made ​​of a building set for children, the production of contact lenses from Hydrogel. However, the Academy of Sciences sold the patents without Wichterles knowledge in the United States.

1970 Wichterle was deposed by the management of this institution, this time due to the signing of the Manifesto of 2000 words, which called for a resumption of the oppressed in the Prague Spring of 1968 democratization efforts. Wichterles scientific work was also hampered in consequence, because contacts with colleagues, especially from abroad, were often forbidden to him. Only in the course of the Velvet Revolution of 1989 Wichterle was rehabilitated in full. From 1990 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, he served as President of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and was subsequently appointed Honorary President of the Czech Academy.

Appreciation

In 1993, the asteroid was named ( 3899 ) by Otto Wichterle Wichterle.

In 1984 he was awarded the R. W. Wood Prize.

From the Academy of Sciences of the Otto Wichterle award will be granted to young scientists.