Gertrude Bell Elion

Medicine Fairy

When we are sick, when something feels wrong or hurts us, we immediately wish for a magic medicine to make us feel better.

Gertrude B. Elion,the daughter of Jewish emigrants, was born in New York in 1918. She made a special effort to investigate medicines throughout her life. One of the reasons why Gertrude decided to study chemistry was to try to find a remedy to cure cancer, the disease that killed her grandfather when she was just 15 years old.

It was not easy for her. She often worked alone and had to teach to make a living at the same time. However, she helped to develop a lot of medicines, like AZT to treat AIDS, and some antibiotics.

To find a cure for cancer is complicated as first it is necessary to distinguish the difference between cancer cells and normal cells.