This excerpt from Gertrude B. Elion's The Quest for a Cure recounts her remarkable career in medicinal chemistry, particularly her groundbreaking work on purine analogs and their therapeutic applications. The article chronicles her journey from early struggles to find a research position to her leadership in the development of life-saving drugs such as 6-mercaptopurine for leukemia, azathioprine for organ transplantation, allopurinol for gout, and acyclovir for herpes infections. Elion details her key discoveries, the challenges she faced, and the collaborations that enabled her to make these impactful contributions to the field of medicine.
