Google Doogle Pays Tribute to Otto Wichterle, The Czech Chemist Who Invented Soft Contact Lens

Otto Wichterle Google doodle: Google is today celebrating the 108th birthday of Otto Wichterle, the renowned Czech chemist, who invented the soft contact lens and changed the life of millions of people around the world. To celebrate his life and legacy, Google has dedicated a unique doodle to Wichterle, which shows him holding up a single piece of contact lens upon his fingertips, while light is reflected to form the Google logo in the background. Currently, an estimated 140 million people around the world use the modern soft contact lens for their eyesight needs.

Otto Wichterle was born on October 27,  in 1913 in Prostĕjov, the Czech Republic (then, Austria-Hungary). As a lover of science from his youth, Wichterle went on to earn his doctorate in organic chemistry in 1936 from the Prague Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT). He taught as a professor at his alma mater during the 1950s while developing an absorbent and transparent gel for eye implants.

In 1961, Wichterle (a glasses wearer himself) produced the first soft contact lenses with a DIY apparatus made of a child’s erector set, a bicycle light battery, a phonograph motor, and homemade glass tubing and molds. As the inventor of countless patents and a lifelong researcher, Wichterle was elected the first President of the Academy of the Czech Republic following the country’s establishment in 1993.

While Wichterle is most well-known as the inventor of contact lenses, his innovations also laid the foundation for state-of-the-art medical technologies such as “smart” biomaterials, which are used to restore human connective tissues, and bio-recognizable polymers, which have inspired a new standard for drug administration.

Happy birthday, Otto Wichterle—thanks for helping the world see eye to eye!