Gertrude Belle Elion was an American biochemist and pharmacologist who discovered important principles about drug treatment. She was born on January 23, 1918 in New York City. Her parents, who emigrated from Lithuania and Russia, raised her and her younger brother in Manhattan where her father had a dental office. Throughout her life, Gertrude B. Elion enjoyed photography, travel, opera, and theater. In 1937, she received a bachelors degree in chemistry from Hunter College and worked as a lab assistant and high school teacher for many years after. She then continued to obtain her masters degree in chemistry in 1941 at New York University. Under the guidance of Dr. George Hitchings at Burroughs Wellcome company, Elion was able to expand …show more content…
Elion was a part of the National Cancer Institute and served on the National Cancer Advisory Board and the Board of Scientific Counsellors for the Division of Cancer Treatments. She retired as Department Head from Burroughs Wellcome in 1983 and assumed a role as a Research Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at Duke University. In 1988, 5 years after her retirement, Gertrude B. Elion was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine along with George Hitchings and Sir James Black. Elion was also given the National Medal of Science in 1991 and the Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. As a result of her accomplishments, she became the first woman to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. She died on February 21, 1999 in Chapel Hill, North …show more content…
Elion, while working at the Wellcome Research Laboratories, in Tuckahoe, N.Y., developed a wide array of drugs that transformed the world. Today her name is attatched to 45 patents, many of which treated diseases such as malaria and AIDS. One drug that Elion developed was a chemotherapy drug known as 6-mercaptopurine (Purinethol) belonging to a class of drugs known as purine antagonists. This medication works to fight acute lymphatic leukemia by slowing stopping the growth of cancer cells. Another drug developed by Elion was Azathioprine (Imuran), an immunosuppressant used in organ transplants. In the case of the organ transplants, this drug was extremely useful because it kept white blood cells in the body from rejecting the new organ which they percieved as a foreign substance. During her research, Elion also developed a drug to combat plasmodia parasites, which cause malaria. This drug, known as Pyrimethamine (Daraprim), prevents the growth and development of new parasites by preventing the parasites from producing essential proteins. This medication can also be used to treat a serious parasite infection of the body, brain, or eye caused by Toxoplasma gondii parasite, one of the world’s most common parasites. Gertrude B. Elion is also credited with the discovery of many other influential medications such as Allopurinol (Zyloprim), Trimethoprim (Septra), and Acyclovir (Zovirax). Allopurinol (Zyloprim) is used to treat gout, kidney disease, and kidney stones