Women Scientists

Gertrude Elion 1918-1999

At a glance:

American pharmacologist responsible for some of the world's most important medicines

Gertude Elion was born in New York. She had no interest in science as a child, although she did have an insatiable thirst for knowledge. When she was 15, her grandfather died a painful lingering death from stomach cancer. 'I decided that nobody should have to suffer that much'. So she took chemistry as a degree but when she graduated, no positions were available in research laboratories for women. She worked as a lab assistant and a high school teacher to earn enough to let her take a part time PhD, but then gave it up to take a job as assistant to George Hitchings at the Burroughs Wellcome pharmaceutical company. She never did get a PhD although she was to get a string of honorary doctorates later in her life. Her innovative research, both with Hitchings and alone, producing a string of new drugs. Mercaptopurine, the first drug for leukaemia, the first immuno-suppressive agent, the malaria drug Daraprim and, paving the way for AZT and other anti-HIV drugs, acyclovir for viral herpes. She became the first woman to be inducted into the US National Inventors Hall of Fame
Gertrude Elion

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