Women Scientists Posters, Prints, & Photographs, “E...-”
notable and famous women scientists for social studies and science classrooms.

Gertrude Elion
b. 1-23-1918; NYC, NY
d. 2-21-1999, Chapel Hill, NC

Shunning traditional trial-and-error methods for finding effective treatments, biochemist Gertrude Elion took an innovative “pathways” approach that relied on determining how cells use chemicals to reproduce and grow.

Her research led to the development of drugs to combat several serious medical conditions, including leukemia, malaria, viral herpes, and AIDS.

Gertrude Elion quotes ~
• “Don't be afraid of hard work. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Don't let others discourage you or tell you that you can't do it. In my day I was told women didn't go into chemistry. I saw no reason why we couldn't.”
• “I think it's a very valuable thing for a doctor to learn how to do research, to learn how to approach research, something there isn't time to teach them in medical school. They don't really learn how to approach a problem, and yet diagnosis is a problem; and I think that year spent in research is extremely valuable to them.”
• “It is important to go into work you would like to do. Then it doesn't seem like work. You sometimes feel it's almost too good to be true that someone will pay you for enjoying yourself. I've been very fortunate that my work led to useful drugs for a variety of serious illnesses. The thrill of seeing people get well who might otherwise have died of diseases like leukemia, kidney failure, and herpes virus encephalitis cannot be described in words.”
• “Maybe I was young and 'cute' (after all, I was only twenty then), but I've learned over the years that when you put white lab coats on chemists, they all look alike!”
• “People ask me often [whether] the Nobel Prize [was] the thing you were aiming for all your life, and I say that would be crazy. Nobody would aim for a Nobel Prize because, if you didn't get it, your whole life would be wasted. What we were aiming at was getting people well, and the satisfaction of that is much greater than any prize you can get.”
• “I had fallen in love with a young man..., and we were planning to get married. And then he died of subacute bacterial endocarditis... Two years later with the advent of penicillin, he would have been saved. It reinforced in my mind the importance of scientific discovery...”
• “What greater joy can you have than to know what an impact your work has had on people’s lives? The thrill of seeing people get well who otherwise might have died cannot be described in words.”
• “It’s amazing how much you can accomplish when you don't care who gets the credit.” (also attributed to Harry S Truman)

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