5 – Gertrude Elion (1918 – 1998)

Gertrude Elion was an American biochemist and pharmacologist, who shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine with George H. Hitchings and Sir James Black for their use of innovative methods of rational drug design to develop new drugs. She was responsible for the development of AZT (Zidovudine), an antiretroviral drug used to treat AIDS. During her four decade-long partnership with Hitchings, she also developed drugs for the treatment of malaria, leukemia and herpes.

← NEXT →