Google is celebrating the life and legacy of Otto Vicherle, the Czech chemist who invented the soft contact lens, with a doodle on Wednesday. Today, October 27th, marks the 108th birth anniversary of the man whose invention is now used by an estimated 140 million people worldwide. He was born on this day in 1913 in Prostjov, Czech Republic (then Austria-Hungary).
Today’s Google Doodle depicts Witcher holding a piece of contact lens on his fingers, while light is reflected to form the Google logo, representative of vision.
A lover of science from his youth, Vicherle earned his doctorate in organic chemistry from the Prague Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) in 1936. He taught as a professor at his alma mater during the 1950s, developing an absorbent and transparent gel for eye implants.
The political upheaval pushed Vicherle out of ICT, forcing him to continue refining his hydrogel development at home. In 1961, Witcherle, an eyeglass wearer himself, designed the first soft contact lens with a child’s erector set, a bicycle light battery, a phonograph motor, and DIY tools made from homemade glass tubing and molds.
As the inventor and lifelong researcher of countless patents, Vichterle was elected the first President of the Academy of the Czech Republic since the country’s founding in 1993.
While Vicheral is best known as the inventor of the contact lens, his innovations laid the foundation for cutting-edge medical technologies such as “smart” biomaterials, which are used to restore human connective tissues, and bioidentifiable polymers, which Has inspired a new standard for drug administration.
Here’s a look at an early draft of Wednesday’s doodle shared by Google.
Happy birthday, Otto Wicherle.
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