User:AlyssaRetiz/AmparoBarbaCisneros

Amparo Barba Cisneros (1918-2011) was a Mexican chemical engineer who served as the head of the Micro-Analytic Department at Syntex Research Laboratories from 1947-1955. She studied at the National School of Chemical Sciences (Spanish: Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Químicas, ENQC), now known as the Faculty of Chemistry at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Spanish: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM), where she was part of ENQC's first generation of students and one of the first women to obtain a degree in chemical engineering.

Early life and education
Barba became interested in chemistry after attending secondary school at the National Preparatory School #2 "Erasmo Castellanos Quinto," one of the institutions within UNAM's National Preparatory High School System (Spanish: Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, ENP). While enrolled in the ENP system, primarily during her first and second years, Barba pursued the physical chemistry curriculum in which she took classes in general, inorganic, and organic chemistry. It was during this time she participated in a chemistry class taught by Professor Marcelino García Junco y Payan, an accomplished chemical engineer who taught organic chemistry through his textbooks, namely Nociones Fundamentales de Química and Compendio de Química Orgánica. With her secondary education completed, Barba sought to continue her studies in chemistry at the university level.

Attending the ENQC
Barba enrolled at the ENQC in 1937 and graduated in 1943 after completing her thesis, titled "Diseño y cálculo de una planta de tratamiento de kerosina por medio del plumbito de calcio" (English: "Design and calculation of a kerosine treatment plant using calcium plumbate"). Barba, significantly, was among one of the first ENQC classes and one of the first women at the institution to graduate with a chemical engineering degree. Notably, Barba completed her collegiate studies during the first wave of modern Mexican industrialization which spanned from 1890 to the late 1930s. This historical period saw the rise of Mexican factories and the widespread production of goods for national and international markets for which chemistry played an important role. In fact, the ENQC modeled its curriculum to support the needs of the Mexican industrialization movement, for more chemists were required for the mass chemical production processes required by up-and-coming factories. Shortly after her graduation, Barba helped found the National College of Chemical Engineers (Spanish: Colegio Nacional de Ingenieros Químicos y de Químicos, CONIQQ), which was established on July 25, 1946 as a Civil Association. Barba was one of the CONIQQ's 10 founding women among over 130 professionals.

Career
After completing her studies at the ENQC, Barba began work at the PEMEX refinery in Azcapotzalco where she faced discrimination from her colleagues for working in an industrial laboratory as a woman. This, however, did not change her desire to work professionally in the chemical industry. Sometime later, while working at the COVE shoe company, Barba was reacquainted with her former instructor, Marcelino García Junco y Payan, who recommended she join him working in the Hormone Laboratories (Spanish: Laboratorios Hormona) in Mexico City. The managers of the Hormone Laboratories, Federico A. Lehmann and Emeric (“Imre”) Somlo, had recently partnered with American chemist Russell E. Marker to found a new company in 1944 - Syntex Research Laboratories. Syntex was founded in Mexico City for the manufacture of therapeutic steroids for fear of losing contact with European suppliers in the event of future world wars and in hopes that the Mexican steroid industry would become more independent.

At Syntex Research Laboratory
Barba agreed to join this new company (after having worked at the Hormone Laboratories) and quickly became part of the professional workforce within Syntex. She worked specifically on the production of progesterone from Dioscorea mexicana and Dioscorea composita, a research endeavor that would lead to the first practical synthesis of progesterone via the "Marker Degradation" mechanism and a significant cost reduction of progesterone and other important steroids with the advent of the Mexican chemical industry. At Syntex, Barba was appointed head of the Micro-Analytic Department from 1947-1955, in which she helped to develop George Rosenkranz's research program. Under Rosenkranz, Barba would receive samples (both from the intermediate mechanistic stages and of the final synthetic compounds) and determine their purities and contamination levels using melting point analysis, Ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy, and specific optical rotation. These chemical analyses are of the utmost importance when selling medical products for widespread use; the determination of a compound's purity has dire consequences for consumers for the risk of by-product and reagent contamination. Barba, along with Francisca ("Paquita") Revaque and Ann Rochmann were responsible for such microanalyses for the synthesis of testosterone in the Rosenkranz Group. When the research demanded the elemental analyses of carbon and hydrogen, it was Barba and her colleague Raquel Cervera who conducted the tests. Revaque, Rochmann, and María Eugenia Frontana led the efforts to carry out UV spectroscopy and specific rotation determination in the Rosenkranz Group. Barba resigned from Syntex after a very successful career in 1954 to focus on her family.

Further readings
Synthesis of 19-nor-17alpha-ethynyltestosterone and 19-nor-17alpha-methyltestosterone

Muñoz Mena, E.; Mavil Bueno, E. F. Síntesis de Un Nuevo Éster Del Ácido Difenilacético. Ciencia 1952, XII (5-6), 149–151.