Gertrude Elion

Hello! My name is Gertrude Elion, but my friends and family called me Trudy. I was born on January 23rd, 1918, in New York City. Even when I was a little girl, I was full of questions! I loved to read books and learn about everything in the world around me. A very important moment happened when I was 15 years old. My dear grandfather got very sick with an illness called cancer. It made me so sad to see him suffer. Right then, I knew exactly what I wanted to do when I grew up. I decided I would become a scientist. I wanted to spend my life finding ways to make medicines that could help people just like him get better.

When I was ready to start my career, it wasn't easy for women to become scientists, but I told myself, 'I won't give up!'. I went to a school called Hunter College and graduated in the year 1937. After I finished school, it was hard to find the right job. But I was determined to keep learning, so I took any job in science that I could find. Sometimes, I even worked for free! I worked as a lab assistant, helping other scientists, and I even worked as a substitute teacher. Finally, in 1944, I got a wonderful job at a research laboratory. That's where I met another scientist named George Hitchings. We became a great team. It was like we were science detectives, working together to solve big puzzles about how the human body works.

George and I had a brand-new idea for making medicine. Back then, many scientists would just mix different chemicals together and hope for the best. We wanted to be smarter about it. We decided to study the tiny living things that make up our bodies, called cells. We learned how healthy cells grow and how sick cells, like cancer cells, grow differently. Our plan was to create special medicines that would trick the sick cells and stop them from growing, but without hurting the healthy ones. And guess what? It worked! In 1951, I helped develop a medicine that fought a type of cancer in children called leukemia. A few years later, in 1957, we created another important drug. This one helped people's bodies accept new organs, like kidneys, after an operation. This meant they could live longer, healthier lives. I was so happy to know that our hard work was making a real difference for so many people.

For all of our discoveries, I was given a very special award in 1988 called the Nobel Prize. I was so proud of what our team had done! But the best prize of all was knowing that the medicines I helped create were helping people all over the world feel better and live longer. I lived a long and happy life, filled with discovery, until I was 81 years old. Today, I am remembered as a scientist who never gave up on her dreams and whose curiosity helped create medicines that are still saving lives every single day.