Gertrude B. Elion
Gertrude B. Elion
Gertrude Belle Elion was an American biochemist and pharmacologist, who shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with George H. Hitchings and Sir James Black. Working alone as well as with Hitchings and Black, Elion developed a multitude of new drugs, using innovative research methods that would later lead to the development of the AIDS drug AZT...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth23 January 1918
CountryUnited States of America
cancer science suffering
I had no specific bent toward science until my grandfather died of stomach cancer. I decided that nobody should suffer that much.
waiting world wanted
Nobody . . . took me seriously. They wondered why in the world I wanted to be a chemist when no women were doing that. The world was not waiting for me.
men discovery years
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...
hard-work saws reason-why
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.