Elion, Gertrude Belle

▪ 2000

      American biochemist (b. Jan. 23, 1918, New York, N.Y.—d. Feb. 21, 1999, Chapel Hill, N.C.), undertook, with George H. Hitchings, a new approach to drug development that led to the formulation of medicines for such diseases as leukemia and herpes and earned her a share (with Hitchings and Sir James Black) of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Elion studied biochemistry at Hunter College, New York City (B.S., 1937), but was unable to find work as a medical researcher owing to her gender. She took a series of jobs, including that of teacher, before earning a master's degree from New York University (1941). Helped by the labour shortages created by World War II, she joined Burroughs Wellcome Laboratories in 1944 and a year later began a collaboration with Hitchings that would span more than 40 years. Rather than employing the trial-and-error approach favoured by most pharmacologists, the two scientists began examining the differences between the biochemistry of normal human cells and that of cancer cells, viruses, and other disease-causing agents. This research eliminated much of the guesswork and wasted effort typical in drug research and allowed them to design target-specific drugs that acted on a particular pathogen without harming the healthy cells of the human host. Among their numerous discoveries were medicines that treated malaria and gout and that prevented the rejection of transplanted organs. Though Elion officially retired in 1983, she continued to conduct research, most notably overseeing the development of AZT, the first drug used against AIDS.

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