14 Facts About Leo Sternbach

Leo Sternbach was a Polish American chemist who is credited with first synthesizing benzodiazepines, the main class of minor tranquilizers.

Leo Sternbach's parents met and married in Opatija where they both lived.

In 1926, Leo Sternbach moved with his family to Krakow, Poland.

Leo Sternbach received his master's degree in pharmacy in 1929 and his doctoral degree in organic chemistry in 1931 from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow.

Leo Sternbach moved to Vienna and then to Zurich where he continued his researches started in Krakow.

Leo Sternbach is credited with the discovery of chlordiazepoxide, diazepam, flurazepam, nitrazepam, flunitrazepam, clonazepam, and trimethaphan.

Leo Sternbach held 241 patents, and his discoveries helped to turn Roche into a pharmaceutical industry giant.

Leo Sternbach did not become wealthy from his discoveries, but he was happy; he treated chemistry as a passion and said, "I always did just what I wanted to do".

Leo Sternbach was active in his career until the age of 95.

Leo Sternbach was a longtime resident of Upper Montclair, New Jersey, from 1943 to 2003.

Leo Sternbach then moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he died in 2005.

Leo Sternbach was murdered in 1940 in the Nazi Sachsenhausen concentration camp as the result of the Nazi action against Polish academic teachers called Sonderaktion Krakau.

Leo Sternbach is present in the New Jersey Inventor's Hall of Fame; and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in February 2005, a few months before his death.

Leo Sternbach is a member of the Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame.