Gregory Goodwin Pincus' research in endocrinology resulted in pathbreaking work on hormones and animal physiology. However, he is best known for developing the oral contraceptive pill. As his friend and colleague Hudson Hoagland remarked in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine: "[Pincus'] highly important development of a pill... to control human fertility in a world rushing on to pathological overpopulation is an example of practical humanism at its very best." In addition, Pincus also participated in the founding of the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology and the annual Laurentian Hormone Conference.

Pincus was born in Woodbine, New Jersey, on April 9, 1903, the eldest son of Joseph and Elizabeth Lipman Pincus. His father, a graduate of Storrs Agricultural College in Connecticut, was a teacher and the editor of a farm journal. His mother's family came from Latvia and settled in New Jersey. Pincus' uncle on his mother's side, Jacob Goodale Lipman...