The anti-cancer drugs were created by the American chemist and Nobel Prize winner, Gertrude Belle Elion.  Gertrude was born in New York City in 1918 and passed away in 1999.  When Gertrude was a small child, her grandfather died of cancer.  Gertrude was very close to her grandfather and wanted to know more about the disease that killed him.  Her goal was to research on cancer and one day find a cure so other people would not have to suffer as much as her grandfather.

   ( in Bibliography)
Gertrude Elion

She studied cancer in high school and college.  When she graduated from New York's Hunter College, with the highest honors, she was not able to afford graduate school because during the Depression, her family suffered financial losses.  She applied to fifteen graduate schools and asked for financial aid.  All of them turned her down.  Her chance to finally work as a chemist came during World War II when many of the male chemists were away.  There were a vital need for chemists.  She began working in a food laboratory and later she worked in a research laboratory.  She finally began her serious journey in 1944 at Burroughs Wellcome, a pharmaceutical company.

    Six years later, her and her research partner, Dr. George Hitchings, developed a drug to fight child leukemia which is a serious and common type of cancer.  In 1950, Gertrude and Dr. Hitchings got their first patent, a document from the government that makes sure no one else can make money off their invention.  Over the years, Gertrude and her partner received over forty patents for their research on cancer, including one for a drug that makes it possible to have kidney transplants.  Gertrude and her partner compared the functioning of normal human cells with bacteria cells, virus cells, and cancer cells in order to find way to harm or kill dangerous invading cells without damaging the healthy ones.

   (in Bibliography)
cancer cells growing toward a blood vessel

    Their research also led to the discovery on AZT which helps AID patients.  In the time span of four decades, Gertrude and Dr Hitchings developed drugs for the treatment of many conditions and diseases, which includes malaria, leukemia, cancer, bacterial infections, and heart disease.  She created Purinethol and Thioquinnine to treat acute leukemia.  She also aided in the discovery of Zyloprim which treated gout and excess uremic acid resulting in chemotherapy and radiation treatment of cancer.  This invention changed millions of lives forever.

    In that time period and even now, cancer has been a spreading and deadly disease that will not stop.  Gertrude Belle Elion gave hope to those that were infected with cancer.  In the year 1988, Dr. Hitchings and Gertrude were rewarded with the Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology.  In March of 1991, Gertrude Elion was the first women inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.  She said,"I'm happy to be the first, but I doubt I'll be the last."

Book: Casey, Susan.Women Invent!.Chicago.:Chicago Review Press,1997

Website: "Elion, Gertrude Belle, an Encarta Encyclopedia Article Titled "Elion,
Gertrude Belle".October 29,                     1999.http://www.encarta.msn.com/index/conciseindex/B4/OB47100.htm(May 17,     2000)

Pictures: (in sequential order)
-Casey, Susan.Women Invent!.Chicago.:Chicago Review Press,1997

-"First Look At How Cancer Cells Spread"January 19, 2000
  http://www.psa-rising.org/medicalpike/angio-duke janOO.htm(May17, 2000)

CD Rom:unknown."Elion, Gertrude B., and Hitchings, George H."
CD-Rom. The Academic American Encyclopedia (1995 Grolier Multimedia          Encyclopedia Version), copyright (c) 1995 Grolier, Inc. Danbury, CT