Adolf Butenandt; Nobel Prize-Winning Chemist

Adolf Butenandt, 91, who shared a Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in hormones that led eventually to the birth control pill. In 1929, Butenandt isolated the female hormone estrone and two years later the male hormone androsterone. In 1935, he isolated the pregnancy hormone progesterone and synthesized the male hormone testosterone. Butenandt shared the 1939 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Czechoslovakian scientist Leopold Ruzicka, but because of the Nazi dictatorship he could not accept it until after World War II. From 1960 to 1972, Butenandt headed the Max-Planck Society for the Promotion of Science. On Wednesday in Munich.