Other drugs they created have been used to fight malaria, infections, and gout, as well as help with organ transplantations. Explore a storytelling experience that celebrates and explores the contributions, careers and lives of 19 women who have been awarded Nobel Prizes for their scientific achievements.
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive. Gertrude B. Life Gertrude Elion was born in New York. Though she officially retired from Burroughs Wellcome in , she remained at the laboratory on a quasi-fulltime basis as a Scientist Emeritus and consultant, overseeing the development of azidothymidine AZT , the first viable drug in the fight against AIDS.
Three years later, she was awarded the National Medal of Science and became the first female inductee of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In , she was chosen as a Foreign Member of the Royal Society UK , and held a professorship as well as multiple honorary doctorates — all without ever receiving a formal Ph. But through saving and improving the lives of many others, she trumped anyone who long ago dismissed her choice of career.
Contact us at letters time. Burroughs Wellcome researcher Gertrude Elion was back at work in the lab after being named a Nobel Prize winner in Medicine in Elion and coworker George Hitchings were chosen for the honor for their work in developing drugs to treat leukemia and AIDS.
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His approach was to observe the differences in nucleic acid DNA and RNA metabolism among protozoa, normal human cells, and abnormal cells e. Hoping to develop drugs that selectively block the growth of cancer cells and poisonous organisms, Hitchings assigned Elion to investigate organic compounds called purines—specifically, the purine bases adenine and guanine, which are building blocks of DNA. They soon discovered, from observing the role of purines in nucleic acid metabolism, that bacterial cells require certain purines to make DNA.
Hitchings hypothesized that by preventing those purines from entering the metabolic pathway that leads to DNA synthesis, they could stop the production of DNA and thereby stop cell growth. Along the way, Elion published papers on her findings.
By , Hitchings and Elion successfully synthesized two compounds—diaminopurine and thioguanine—which attract metabolic enzymes to latch onto them instead of natural purines, thereby blocking DNA production. For the first time, a treatment that could interfere with the formation of leukemia cells was now available to put Leukemia patients in remission. While the new chemotherapy drugs proved effective in treating the cancer, they were too toxic and caused severe vomiting. Elion began searching for a less poisonous compound, testing over purine compounds.
She finally discovered 6-mercaptopurine 6-MP , which she created by replacing one sulphur atom with an oxygen atom. In testing, mouse tumors failed to grow, and treated mice live twice as long as those left untreated. Children given the treatment went into complete remission, but they were not cured.
Elion decided to focus on understanding the metabolism of the drug to come up with a better solution. Previously that year, she had discovered a close relative of 6-MP called thioguanine.
A physician found that by combining either 6-MP or thioguanine with other drugs, children with leukemia could be treated more effectively. Today, this method—along with maintenance therapy—is responsible for curing 80 percent of children with Leukemia.
Thioguanine is also used to treat acute myelocytic leukemia AML in adults. However, she had to make what turned out to be the most critical decision of her life: whether or not to give up her job and register full-time to complete her doctorate. Of course, she ultimately decided to stay and continue her work as a research chemist at Wellcome. Previously, medicinal chemists would synthesize hundreds of compounds related to a molecule that showed promise during a compound screen in order to develop the most effective drug.
Now a common method used throughout the pharmaceutical industry, rational drug design is based on the characterization of a biological target defining its binding pocket, identifying its natural substrates and their chemical structures, determining physiological function, etc. This innovative new approach, which was based on an understanding of biochemical and physiological processes, removed a lot of the guess work and wasted time, money, and effort that previously went into developing novel therapeutics.
The two worked closely together over the next four decades, developing an array of new drugs that were effective against leukemia, autoimmune disorders, urinary-tract infections, gout, and malaria. She continued with her work in subsequent years, developing acyclovir Zovirax , an antiviral medication primarily used for the treatment of herpes, and, though Elion officially retired in , helped oversee the development of azidothymidine, the first drug used in the treatment of AIDS.
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