Russell Marker percolates up

A few days ago an entry from In the Pipeline included the phrase "Mexican yams and their biggest fan," with the last two words linked to somewhere. oooh! Intriguing! I thought maybe I'd know who this fan was. The link takes us to a Chemical and Engineering News article about Russell Marker. So of course the article discusses the history of Syntex and mentions our man of the hour: Dr. Djerassi.