Josef Fried

Joseph Fried (July 21, 1914 – August 17, 2001) was a Polish-American organic chemist, member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He held 200 patents on chemical compounds, with 43 listing him as the sole holder. Fried discovered fluorohydrocortisone, a chemical used to treat adrenal disorders. Elias James Corey said of Fried: "He was an outstanding, highly creative scientist who straddled both the worlds of pharmaceutical research and academic science. He was one of my heroes, and I've always thought of him as a model scientist of great character and great human warmth."

Career Josef Fried was born in the town of Przemyśl, Poland, on July 21, 1914. Fried received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Columbia University in 1940. Fried joined the Squibb Institute in 1944 as a head of its antibiotics and steroids department. He was later promoted to director of the organic chemistry section in 1959. In 1963 Fried was appointed professor at the Ben May Laboratory for Cancer Research at the University of Chicago.