With the announcement of President Barack Obama”s Nobel Peace Prize, many people who have not before been familiar with Nobel nominees or winners are aware now.
It is certainly a distinguished honor.
Some didn”t agree with the prize going to the president. Those people got fired up and angrily learned about the other nominees and winners this year.
I say, cool, whatever it takes for some folks to learn, should be embraced.
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize honors men and women from all over the world for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and for work in peace.
According to nobelprize.org, “The foundations for the prize were laid in 1895 when Alfred Nobel wrote his last will, leaving much of his wealth to the establishment of the Nobel Prize.”
Alfred Nobel was a scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, author and pacifist.
Obama”s Nobel Peace Prize brought the Nobel name to a more broad audience and created the perfect segue into the story of my hands-down favorite Nobel winner. She was in a different field, a different year and an era when there weren”t too many women scientists. Her name is Gertrude Elion. She resembles Aunt Bee on the Andy Griffith show. But she wasn”t baking pies for the sheriff and Opie.
It”s all about the gout. At least that”s how I learned about her.
She was one of three, including; Sir James W. Black from the U.K. and George H. Hitchings from the U.S. The three won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1988, for discoveries of important principles for drug treatment.
Elion and Hitchings had collaborated since 1945. They demonstrated differences in nucleic acid metabolism between normal human cells, cancer cells, protozoa, bacteria and virus. According to Nobel.org, “On the basis of such differences a series of drugs were developed that block nucleic acid synthesis in cancer cells and noxious organisms without damaging the normal human cells. Over the years Elion”s and Hitchings” research philosophy formed the basis for development of new drugs against a variety of diseases. From 1950 to 1951,” they developed thioguanine and 6-mercaptopurine to fight leukemia and pyrimethamine to combat malaria. Additionally, azathioprine, a drug that prevents rejection of transplanted organs and allopurinol, which is used in the treatment of gout were developed in 1957 and 1963.
In Elion”s autobiography she writes, “I was a child with an insatiable thirst for knowledge and remember enjoying all of my courses almost equally. When it came time at the end of my high school career to choose a major in which to specialize I was in a quandary. One of the deciding factors may have been that my grandfather, whom I loved dearly, died of cancer when I was 15. I was highly motivated to do something that might eventually lead to a cure for this terrible disease. When I entered Hunter College in 1933, I decided to major in science and, in particular, chemistry.”
Regardless of financial challenges or social roadblocks, Elion seemed to gleefully and patiently march forward with her education. She would work in laboratories and return to achieve her higher education whenever she could. She did remember being the only woman in many of the programs; but did not recall anyone having a problem with her. She describes the sciences passionately in her autobiography and in a way that makes the words jump off of the page. I could almost hear her voice.
According to the Web site “This year five of the 13 new Nobel Laureates are women, the largest number ever to join the ranks in a single year. The scope of the awarded work is marvelously broad, encompassing the protection and deciphering of DNA at one end of the spectrum, to global communication networks and international diplomacy at the other.”
Do learn about Nobel Prize nominees and winners and while you”re at it, play the educational games on the Web site, they”re awesome.
Mandy Feder is the Record-Bee news editor. She can be reached at mandyfeder@yahoo.com or 263-5636 Ext. 32.
