- Person
- Gertrude Elion
- Lived
- 1918–1999
- Field
- Pharmacology
- From
- American
The story
Gout is caused by uric acid crystals collecting in the joints, producing attacks of intense pain and, over years, joint damage and kidney stones. Uric acid is the end product of the body's breakdown of purines, the very molecules Gertrude Elion had spent her career studying at Burroughs Wellcome.
The route to a gout drug began with cancer. Elion's 6-mercaptopurine, introduced in the early 1950s, was broken down in the body by an enzyme called xanthine oxidase, the same enzyme that produces uric acid. Her group looked for ways to block that enzyme so that 6-mercaptopurine would last longer. One candidate was allopurinol, first synthesised by Roland Robins in 1956, which Wayne Rundles tested in collaboration with Elion's laboratory.
Allopurinol did not improve the response of leukaemia, but it did something else very well: it sharply reduced the body's production of uric acid. The team turned to gout. Instead of simply soothing the pain of an attack, the drug tackled the chemistry that caused the disease, and it proved safe for long-term use. The Nobel Assembly dates the result of this research to 1963, and on 19 August 1966 the US Food and Drug Administration approved allopurinol, sold by Burroughs Wellcome as Zyloprim.
Allopurinol is still one of the most commonly prescribed medicines. In 2023 it was the 45th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 14 million prescriptions. It is used to prevent gout attacks and certain kidney stones and to control the rise in uric acid that can occur when cancer patients begin chemotherapy, and it is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.
The story shows how Elion's method worked in practice. By understanding exactly which enzymes a drug met in the body, her team could turn an unsuccessful experiment in one disease into a lasting treatment for another.
Why it matters
Millions of people with gout have been spared painful attacks and joint damage by a drug that grew directly out of Elion's purine research.
About Gertrude Elion
Chemist without a doctorate who pioneered rational drug design and created drugs for leukaemia, transplants, gout and herpes, sharing the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
More about Gertrude Elion
- Gertrude Elion's 6-MP gave children with leukaemia a chanceIn the early 1950s Gertrude Elion synthesised 6-mercaptopurine, one of the first effective drugs against acute leukaemia, then almost always fatal in children.
- Elion's team created acyclovir, a pioneering antiviralIn the 1970s Gertrude Elion's group developed acyclovir, the first selective and effective antiviral drug, which attacks herpes viruses while sparing healthy cells.
- Elion's azathioprine made kidney transplants workableGertrude Elion's laboratory produced azathioprine, the first widely used drug to stop the body rejecting a transplanted kidney from an unrelated donor.
- Researchers Elion trained helped develop AZTAfter Gertrude Elion retired in 1983, scientists she had trained, using her methods, developed AZT, one of the first drugs used to treat HIV/AIDS.
- Elion's chemistry also fought malaria and infectionsGertrude Elion's work with George Hitchings contributed to pyrimethamine against malaria and trimethoprim against bacterial infections.
- Gertrude Elion spent her later years mentoring studentsFrom 1971 Gertrude Elion taught at Duke University, mentoring medical and graduate students and publishing more than 25 papers with them.
- Gertrude Elion won a Nobel Prize without a doctorateTurned away from graduate funding, Gertrude Elion never completed a PhD, yet her rational drug design produced leukaemia, transplant and antiviral drugs and won the 1988 Nobel Prize.
Sources
- Gertrude B. Elion Wikipedia
- Gertrude Elion Jewish Women's Archive Encyclopedia
- The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1988: Press release NobelPrize.org
- Allopurinol Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.