Gertrude B. Elion

Gertrude Elion
Elion in 1983
Born
Gertrude Belle Elion

(1918-01-23)January 23, 1918
New York City, United States
DiedFebruary 21, 1999(1999-02-21) (aged 81)
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, US
Alma materHunter College
New York University
Awards
Scientific career
Institutions
Websitewww.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1988/elion-bio.html
Signature

Gertrude "Trudy"[2] 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.[3] 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.[4]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference formemrs was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Gertrude Elion | Jewish Women's Archive". jwa.org. Retrieved April 9, 2019.
  3. ^ Adams, Patrick, Meet the woman who gave the world antiviral drugs, National Geographic, August 31, 2020
  4. ^ Kresge, Nicole; Simoni, Robert D.; Hill, Robert L. (May 9, 2008). "Developing the Purine Nucleoside Analogue Acyclovir: the Work of Gertrude B. Elion". J. Biol. Chem. 283 (19): e11. doi:10.1016/S0021-9258(20)59806-2. Retrieved January 25, 2018.