Otto Wichterle : Today’s Google Doodle on Otto Wichterle’s 108th Birthday -Inventor of Contact Lenses

Otto Wichterle (27 October 1913 – 18 August 1998) was a Czech chemist, best known for his invention of modern soft contact lenses.

Google Honors Otto Wichterle on his 108th Birthday with a Doodle.

Biography

His father Karel was co-owner of a successful farm-machine factory and small car plant but Otto chose science for his career. After finishing high school (today’s Wolker Grammar School) in Prostějov, Wichterle began to study at the Chemical and Technological Faculty of the Czech Technical University (now the independent University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague) but he was also interested in medicine.

He graduated in 1936 and stayed at the university. In 1939 submitted his second doctorate thesis on chemistry, but the Protectorate regime blocked any further activity at the university. However, Wichterle was able to join the research institute at Baťa’s works in Zlín and continue his scientific work.

There he led the technical preparation of plastics, namely polyamide and caprolactam. In 1941, Wichterle’s team invented the procedure to throw and spool polyamide thread thus making the first Czechoslovak synthetic fiber under the name silon (the invention came independently of the original American nylon procedure in 1938). Wichterle was imprisoned by the Gestapo in 1942 but was released after a few months.

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Early contact lenses

By late 1961 Wichterle succeeded in producing the first four hydrogel contact lenses on a home-made apparatus built using a children’s building kit (Merkur), a bicycle dynamo belonging to one of his sons, and a bell transformer. Wichterle also made all the moulds and glass tubing needed to dose them with monomer. On Christmas afternoon, with the help of his wife Linda, using the machine on his kitchen table, Wichterle finally succeeded. He tried the lenses in his own eyes and although they were the wrong power they were comfortable.

Thus, he invented a new way of manufacturing the lenses using a centrifugal casting procedure. A few days later, he completed his patent application and produced over 100 lenses by spin casting. He built several new prototype machines using Merkur toys with increasing numbers of spindles which required the stronger motor taken from his gramophone.

With these rudimentary devices, in the first four months of 1962, Wichterle and Linda made 5,500 lenses. The early experimental lenses were called Geltakt and the later production lenses Spofalens after the state enterprise SPOFA which manufactured them.

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In 1965 National Patent Development Corporation (NPDC) bought the American rights to produce the lenses and then sublicensed the rights to Bausch & Lomb which started to manufacture them in the USA. In 1977 the patents were challenged, mainly by Continuous Curve Contact Lenses and in May 1977 the CSAS sold these patents to avoid any liability if the court case failed. However, Wichterle and NPDC won the court case in 1983

Other Achievements

Wichterle came to be well-known beyond the frontiers of his country not only through his achievements but also because of his activities in international organizations, chief among which was the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). He took part in the preparations for its Prague symposia in 1957 and 1965, which were much applauded by participants; he had a hand in the inauguration of its fifth, macromolecular, division, of which he was to become the first president, and he gained further credit by combining within it what were for normal administrative purposes the separate fields of pure and applied chemistry.

Wichterle is the author of a large number of studies both great and small as well as several independent books on various aspects of organic, inorganic and macromolecular chemistry, polymer science and biomedical materials, while he had an even higher number of patents out for organic synthesis, polymerization, fibres, the synthesis and shaping of biomedical materials, production methods and measuring devices related to biomedical products. He is the author or co-author of approximately 180 patents and over 200 publications. This was typical of his attitude to scientific research which, he considered, ought to serve society and its requirements by any means possible, without distinction as to “pure” and “applied” science.