Gertrude B. Elion
Gertrude B. Elion was 15 years old and living in New York when she finished high school in 1933. She described herself as having an ‘insatiable thirst for knowledge’ and enjoying everything she studied at school; so choosing what to do with the rest of her life was posing a bit of a challenge.
Her teachers thought she would become a writer, or maybe a historian…until the death of someone she loved inspired her to dedicate her life to saving lives.
“One of the deciding factors may have been that my grandfather, whom I loved dearly, died of cancer when I was 15. I was highly motivated to do something that might eventually lead to a cure for this terrible disease”
Gertrude Elion's graduation photo from Hunter College, 1937
Her parents couldn’t afford to send her to college, but her grades were so good that she was accepted at a free, all-girls college where she chose to study chemistry. Despite graduating at the top of her class she struggled to find a job - there were very few jobs available, and most of the jobs were in labs that refused to hire women. One prospective employer used the excuse that they couldn’t hire her because having an attractive female in the lab would be too distracting for the men.
Yeah, you read that right.
She admits that this was the one time her perseverance began to falter, and she started to think a career in science was not possible for her. But thank her (and our) lucky stars because she would soon meet a chemist who was happy to have her as his lab assistant, but there was one catch: they couldn’t pay her, she would have to volunteer and do the work for free. Gertrude still saw the opportunity as worthwhile - she would get the chance to develop her skills and contribute to the field - and she stayed there for one and a half years (they were eventually able to pay her for her hard work… a grand total of $20 dollars a week). She would eventually save up enough to enrol at New York University, where she would undertake graduate studies and be the only female student in her chemistry class.
During this time she experienced the loss of another love - her fiancé, Leonard, died from a heart infection.
“I had fallen in love with a young man..., and we were planning to get married. And then he died of subacute bacterial endocarditis... Two years later with the advent of penicillin, he would have been saved. It reinforced in my mind the importance of scientific discovery...”
She has said that if she had married it is unlikely she would have continued her career. Not because she wouldn’t want to, but because “In those days it would have been very much frowned on for a married woman to be working, or to come back to the lab if she had a child.”
She obtained her Master of Science degree in chemistry in 1941, two years into World War 2. Like many women of her time she found opportunities became available to her as men left their work to join the fight. Multiple research laboratories were now offering her a job and she chose to work as an assistant to a man named George Hitchings.
“My thirst for knowledge stood me in good stead in that laboratory, because Dr. Hitchings permitted me to learn as rapidly as I could and to take on more and more responsibility when I was ready for it... I never felt constrained to remain strictly in chemistry, but was able to broaden my horizons into biochemistry, pharmacology, immunology, and eventually virology”
Her partnership with George would last 40 years, and the list of what she would go on to achieve, along with Hitchings and their fellow researchers, is nothing short of astounding. Here’s just a few:
The first drugs to successfully treat leukaemia. When they started their research, children diagnosed with acute leukaemia would survive for only a few months after diagnosis. Now, with treatment including the drug created by Gertrude and George, the survival rate has increased to around 80%!
Success of organ transplants. Our bodies are designed to recognise a foreign object as a bad thing, and kick our immune system into gear to kill it and protect us. Their drug is used to stop that from happening when that ‘foreign object’ is a donated kidney. Almost 70,000 kidney transplants now take place every year.
The first drug to treat HIV. Even after her official retirement she couldn’t keep herself away from the research labs. She continued to go in and oversee her former colleagues and witnessed them using principals she had proven, and techniques she pioneered, as they developed the first drug in the world to treat HIV. Approximately 68% of adults and 53% of children living with HIV are now receiving medication, while around 85% of pregnant and breastfeeding mothers are receiving treatment to protect their health and prevent HIV being passed to their babies.
A new ‘rational’ method of research worthy of the Nobel Prize. In 1988 Gertrude and George, along with fellow research James W. Black, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine - she was the 5th woman to receive the honour.
“Gertrude Elion's research revolutionized both the development of new pharmaceuticals and the field of medicine in general. Previously, pharmaceuticals had primarily been produced from natural substances. During the 1950s, Gertrude Elion, together with George Hitchings, developed a systematic method for producing drugs based on knowledge of biochemistry and diseases.”
Gertrude Elion.
GlaxoSmithKline plc - GSK Heritage Archives CC-BY-4.0
Yeesh! It’s kinda easy to feel like an underachiever when you see everything she accomplished - but then again, she did have 81 years to do it all. So we will leave you with some wise words from the lady herself:
“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.”
WHAT YOU KNOW NOW!
Gertrude B. Elion was a scientist who specialised in chemistry
As a young woman she suffered the pain of losing people she loved to disease, but used this to motivate her in the pursuit of helping others
Even though Gertrude was an excellent student she still struggled to get work... thankfully she persevered (to great success)
She helped develop innovative ways of treating disease
Her work has saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world