Gertrude "Trudy"[1] Belle Elion (January 23, 1918 – February 21, 1999) was an American biochemist and pharmacologist, who shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with George H. Hitchings and Sir James Black for their use of innovative methods of rational drug design for the development of new drugs.

[1] When she was 15, her grandfather died of stomach cancer, and being with him during his last moments inspired Elion to pursue a career in science and medicine in college.

[6][7][8][9] She was Phi Beta Kappa[10] at Hunter College, which she was able to attend for free due to her grades, graduating summa cum laude in 1937 with a degree in chemistry.

[12] In an interview after receiving her Nobel Prize, she stated that she believed the sole reason she was able to further her education as a young woman was because she was able to attend Hunter College for free.

[7] In 1944, she left to work as an assistant to George H. Hitchings at the Burroughs-Wellcome pharmaceutical company (now GlaxoSmithKline) in Tuckahoe, New York.

[14][15][16][17][18][19] Hitchings was using a new way of developing drugs, by intentionally imitating natural compounds instead of through trial and error.

[5]: 65 Elion synthesized anti-metabolites of purines, and in 1950, she developed the anti-cancer drugs tioguanine and mercaptopurine.

Elion made a critical decision in her life, and stayed with her job and give up the pursuit of her doctorate.

They planned to marry, but Leonard became ill. On June 25, 1941, he died from bacterial endocarditis, an infection of his heart valves.

She played a significant role in the development of AZT, one of the first drugs used to treat HIV and AIDS.

[7] Rather than relying on trial and error, Elion and Hitchings discovered new drugs using rational drug design, which used the differences in biochemistry and metabolism between normal human cells and pathogens (disease-causing agents such as cancer cells, protozoa, bacteria, and viruses) to design drugs that could kill or inhibit the reproduction of particular pathogens without harming human cells.