\"Nobel Prize in Medicine\" Gertrude Elion Hand Signed Biography Page COA For Sale

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\"Nobel Prize in Medicine\" Gertrude Elion Hand Signed Biography Page COA:
$209.99

Up for sale a RARE! "Nobel Prize in Medicine" Gertrude Elion Hand Signed Bio Page. 

 ES - 23, 1918 – February 21, 1999) was who shared the 1988 Nobel Prize

in Physiology or Medicine with George H. Hitchings and Sir James Black for their use of innovative methods

of rational drug design for the development of new drugs.

This new method focused on understanding the target of the drug rather than

simply using trial-and-error. Her work led to the creation of the AIDS drug AZT. Her well known works also include the development of the

first immunosuppressive drug, azathioprine, used to fight rejection in organ transplants, and the first successful antiviral drug, acyclovir (ACV), used in the treatment of herpes

infection. Elion

was born in New York City on

January 23, 1918, to parents Robert Elion, a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant and a dentist, and Bertha

Cohen, a Polish immigrant. Her family lost their wealth after the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Elion was an excellent student who

graduated from Walton High School at

the age of 15. When she was 15, her grandfather died of

stomach cancer, and being with him during his last moments inspired the multi

talented Gertrude to pursue a career in science and medicine in college. She was Phi Beta Kappa at Hunter College, which she was able to attend for free due to

her grades, graduating summa cum laude in 1937 with a degree in chemistry. Unable to find a paying research job after

graduating because she was female, Gertrude worked as a secretary and high

school teacher before working in an unpaid position at a chemistry lab.

Eventually, she saved up enough money to attend New York University and she

earned her M.Sc. in 1941, while working as a high school teacher during the

day. In an interview after receiving her Nobel

Prize, she stated that she believed the sole reason she was able to further her

education as a young female was because she was able to attend Hunter College

for free. Her fifteen financial aid applications for

graduate school were turned down due to gender bias, so she enrolled in a

secretarial school, where she attended only six weeks before she found a job.

Unable to obtain a graduate research position, she worked as a food

quality supervisor at A&P supermarkets and for a food lab in New York, testing

the acidity of pickles and the color of egg yolk going into mayonnaise. She

moved to a position at Johnson and Johnson that she hoped would be more

promising, but ultimately involved testing the strength of sutures. In 1944, she left to work as an assistant to

George H. Hitchings at the Burroughs-Wellcome pharmaceutical company (now GlaxoSmithKline) in Tuckahoe, New York. Hitchings was using a new way of developing

drugs, by intentionally imitating natural compounds instead of through trial

and error. Specifically, he was interested in synthesizing antagonists to

nucleic acid derivatives, with the goal that these antagonists would integrate

into biological pathways. He believed that if he could trick cancer

cells into accepting artificial compounds for their growth, they could be

destroyed without also destroying normal cells. Gertrude synthesized anti-metabolites of purines, and in 1950, she developed the She

pursued graduate studies at night school at New York University Tandon School of Engineering (then

Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute), but after several years of long-range

commuting, she was informed that she would no longer be able to continue her

doctorate on a part-time basis, but would need to give up her job and go to

school full-time. Elion made a critical decision in her life, and stayed with

her job and give up the pursuit of her doctorate. She never obtained a formal Ph.D., but was later awarded an honorary Ph.D. from

New York University Tandon School of Engineering (then Polytechnic University

of New York) in 1989 and an honorary S.D. degree from Harvard University in 1998.

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