Today marks the birthday of Gertrude B. Elion, winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in medicine. Elion died in 1999, but her legacy is lasting.
Gertrude B. Elion
Elion was born in 1918, and attended public high schools. After graduating she attended Hunter College. In her autobiography, she writes, “Had it not been that Hunter College was a free college, and that my grades were good enough for me to enter it, I suspect I might never have received a higher education.” She majored in chemistry at Hunter, wanting to become involved in cancer research after seeing her grandfather die of it. She went on to receive a masters degree from NYU.
She eventually started working with George Hitchings. With him, she expanded her horizons and studied biochemistry, pharmacology, immunology, and virology. She tried to pursue her doctorate by going to school at night, but was eventually informed that in order to get her PhD, she would need to go to school full time. She made the decision to continue working with Hitchings. She went on to receive honorary doctorates from George Washington University, Brown University and the University of Michigan.
Gertrude Elion contributed significantly to the development of many drugs. These include the first treatment for leukemia, a drug for suppressing immune responses in organ transplant cases, a drug for treating malaria, and a drug for treating viral herpes.
Elion recieved the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1988, along with George Hitchings and Sir James Black “for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment”. In 1991, she became the first woman to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
