Gertrude B. Elion won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries about important principles of drug treatment.
Elion developed medicines by designing compounds that interfered with specific biochemical processes in pathogens or abnormal cells. Her work contributed to drugs including 6-mercaptopurine for leukemia, azathioprine for transplantation, and acyclovir for viral infections.
She shared the 1988 Nobel Prize with George H. Hitchings and Sir James W. Black. Elion and Hitchings pioneered a rational approach to drug design based on differences between human cells and disease-causing organisms, rather than relying mainly on trial and error.
A common mix-up is crediting Elion alone for every medicine associated with her laboratory. Her achievements were collaborative, but the Nobel citation recognized her and Hitchings for their shared discoveries of important principles of drug treatment.