science · 21 February 1999 · 25 years ago
death
Died 21 Feb 1999 at age 81 (born 23 Jan 1918).
Gertrude Belle Elion was an American pharmacologist who shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1988 (with George H. Hitchings and Sir James W. Black) for the development of drugs used to treat several major diseases. Research by Elion and Hitchings produced the first drugs specifically designed for cancer therapy, as well as drugs to combat rejection of transplanted organs, gout, malaria and bacterial and viral infections. These medications became well-proven in use over many years, and their drugs appeared on the World Health Organizations's list of so-called "Essential Drugs" as medicines which should be available worldwide to promote "Health for All." Elion held 45 patents.
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