Gertrude B. Elion

Will & Deni McIntyre / Science Source

“Don’t be afraid of hard work. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Don’t let others discourage you or tell you that you can’t do it. In my day I was told women didn’t go into chemistry. I saw no reason why we couldn’t.” 

​Gertrude Elion, from her lecture notes, quoted by Mary Ellen Avery in “Gertrude B. Elion, A Biographical Memoir,” NAS Biographical Memoirs, 78 (2000): 25​

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Gertrude B. Elion (1918–1999), a biochemist and pharmacologist, shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of important principles for drug treatment. Taking a “rational drug development” approach, she used understandings of biological processes to guide pharmaceutical research. Elion helped develop drugs that could interfere with cell growth, leading to the creation of new drugs for leukemia, malaria, and gout. She also developed the first immunosuppressive drug, used to fight rejection in organ transplants. Elion was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

National Academy of Sciences’ Biographical Memoir
http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/elion-gertrude.pdf

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