Gertrude B. Elion

Gertrude "Trudy" Belle Elion (January 23, 1918 – February 21, 1999) was an American biochemist and pharmacologist, who shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with George H. Hitchings and Sir James Black for their use of innovative methods of rational drug design for the development of new drugs.

This new method focused on understanding the target of the drug rather than simply using trial-and-error.

Her work led to the creation of the anti-retroviral drug AZT, which was the first drug widely used against AIDS.

Her well known works also include the development of the first immunosuppressive drug, azathioprine, used to fight rejection in organ transplants, and the first successful antiviral drug, acyclovir (ACV), used in the treatment of herpes infection.

Elion was born in New York City on January 23, 1918, to parents Robert Elion, a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant and a dentist, and Bertha Cohen, a Polish Jewish immigrant.

Her family lost their wealth after the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

Elion was an excellent student who graduated from Walton High School at the age of 15.

When she was 15, her grandfather died of stomach cancer, and being with him during his last moments inspired Elion to pursue a career in science and medicine in college.

She was Phi Beta Kappa at Hunter College, which she was able to attend for free due to her grades, graduating summa cum laude in 1937 with a degree in chemistry.

Unable to find a paying research job after graduating because she was female, Elion worked as a secretary and high school teacher before working in an unpaid position at a chemistry lab.

Eventually, she saved up enough money to attend New York University and she earned her M.Sc.

in 1941, while working as a high school teacher during the day.

In an interview after receiving her Nobel Prize, she stated that she believed the sole reason she was able to further her education as a young female was because she was able to attend Hunter College for free.

Her fifteen financial aid applications for graduate school were turned down due to gender bias, so she enrolled in a secretarial school, where she attended only six weeks before she found a job.

Unable to obtain a graduate research position, she worked as a food quality supervisor at A&P supermarkets and for a food lab in New York, testing the acidity of pickles and the color of egg yolk going into mayonnaise.

She moved to a position at Johnson & Johnson that she hoped would be more promising, but ultimately involved testing the strength of sutures.

On June 25, 1941, he died from bacterial endocarditis, an infection of his heart valves.

In her Nobel interview, she stated that this furthered her drive to become a research scientist and pharmacologist.

Elion never married or had children.

However, her brother, whom she was close with, married and had three sons and a daughter that she took pride in being able to watch grow.

She listed her hobbies as photography, travel, opera and ballet, and listening to music.

After Burroughs Wellcome moved to Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, Elion moved to nearby Chapel Hill.

In 1944, she left to work as an assistant to George H. Hitchings at the Burroughs-Wellcome pharmaceutical company (now GlaxoSmithKline) in Tuckahoe, New York.

Hitchings was using a new way of developing drugs, by intentionally imitating natural compounds instead of through trial and error.

Specifically, he was interested in synthesizing antagonists to nucleic acid derivatives, with the goal that these antagonists would integrate into biological pathways.

He believed that if he could trick cancer cells into accepting artificial compounds for their growth, they could be destroyed without also destroying normal cells.

Elion synthesized anti-metabolites of purines, and in 1950, she developed the anti-cancer drugs tioguanine and mercaptopurine.

She pursued graduate studies at night school at New York University Tandon School of Engineering (then Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute), but after several years of long-range commuting, she was informed that she would no longer be able to continue her doctorate on a part-time basis, but would need to give up her job and go to school full-time.

Elion made a critical decision in her life, and stayed with her job and give up the pursuit of her doctorate.

From 1967 to 1983, she was the head of the department of experimental therapy for Burroughs Wellcome.

She was affiliated with Duke University as adjunct professor of pharmacology and of experimental medicine from 1971 to 1983 and research professor from 1983 to 1999.

She retired in 1983 from Burroughs Wellcome to spend more time traveling and attending the opera.

She continued to make important scientific contributions after her retirement.

One of her passions during this time was encouraging other women to pursue careers in science.

She officially retired from Burroughs and Wellcome in 1983.

She never obtained a formal Ph.D., but was later awarded an honorary Ph.D. from New York University Tandon School of Engineering (then Polytechnic University of New York) in 1989 and an honorary S.D. degree from Harvard University in 1998.

Soon after graduating from Hunter College, Elion met Leonard Canter, an outstanding statistics student at City College of New York (CCNY).

They planned to marry, but Leonard became ill.

Gertrude Elion died in North Carolina in 1999, aged 81.

While Elion had many jobs to support herself and put herself through school, Elion had also worked for the National Cancer Institute, American Association for Cancer Research, and World Health Organization, among other organizations.