Arthur John Birch, AC CMG FRS FAA (3 August 1915 – 8 December 1995) was an Australian organic chemist.
The Birch reduction also allows for the development of other steroid drugs and antibiotics – he also made the first simple synthesis of the ring A-B structure of cholesterol.
The hormone research he became involved with in 1940 was initiated by the RAF who then believed German fighter pilots were given cortical hormones[5] He remained a research Fellow at Oxford until 1948 working under Sir Robert Robinson, when he became the Smithson Fellow at the University of Cambridge where he remained until 1952.
He returned to Australia in 1952 to take up a Professorship in organic chemistry at the University of Sydney, he was made a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 1954.
Birch returned to Australia again in 1967 to establish the Research School of Chemistry at the Australian National University in Canberra, becoming its founding dean.