Introduction Little did Gertrude Belle Elion know that because of her grandfather’s and mother’s deaths early on in her life, she would become a world renowned Nobel Prize winner who discovered a variety of pharmaceuticals to help fight HIV/AIDS, malaria, gout, and cancer.
Early childhood: She was born on January 23, 1918 to a Russian emigrated mother and a Lithuanian emigrated father whom owned his own dentistry practice. She had a younger brother, Herbert, who was six years younger than she was. She grew up for the first six years of her life in Manhattan, then when her brother was born they moved to the suburbs of the Bronx.
School days She attended public school as a child in the Bronx. She would walk to school every day and when the time came after high school to decide what to do, she was confused. She wanted to do something meaningful; this is when she thought of her grandfather and his cancer. She was motivated to do some good in this world and possible fight to find a cure for this disease. She entered Hunter College,
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She got involved with other areas of science like immunology, pharmacology, and virology. Since little was known about enzymes or nucleic acids, her work focused much on purines, which led her to her many discoveries of antiviral medications and other pharmaceuticals.
Personal Life She was a photographer, traveler (never went anywhere growing up), loved to listen to music, opera lover, met opera subscriber, loved concerts, ballet, and theater. Her brother married and had 4 kids- 3 boys, 1 girl. They then in turn gave Elion several grand nieces and nephews.
Scientific Contributions
Elion discovered many drugs to deal with gout, cancer, HIV/AIDS, organ transplant suppressants, herpes, and several other diseases.
Nobel Prize- 1988 for
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta Lacks. In the early 1951 Henrietta discovered a hard lump on the left of the entrance of her cervix, after having unexpected vaginal bleeding. She visited the Johns Hopkins hospital in East Baltimore, which was the only hospital in their area where black patients were treated. The gynecologist, Howard Jones, indeed discovers a tumor on her cervix, which he takes a biopsy off to sent it to the lab for diagnosis. In February 1951 Henrietta was called by Dr. Jones to tell about the biopsy results: “Epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix, Stage I”, in other words, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Before her first radium treatment, surgeon dr. Wharton removed a sample of her cervix tumor and a sample of her healthy cervix tissue and gave this tissue to dr. George Gey, who had been trying to grow cells in his lab for years. In the meantime that Henrietta was recovering from her first treatment with radium, her cells were growing in George Gey’s lab. This all happened without the permission and the informing of Henrietta Lacks. The cells started growing in a unbelievable fast way, they doubled every 24 hours, Henrietta’s cells didn’t seem to stop growing. Henrietta’s cancer cell grew twenty times as fast as her normal healthy cells, which eventually also died a couple of days after they started growing. The first immortal human cells were grown, which was a big breakthrough in science. The HeLa cells were spread throughout the scientific world. They were used for major breakthroughs in science, for example the developing of the polio vaccine. The HeLa-cells caused a revolution in the scientific world, while Henrietta Lacks, who died Octob...
Born on December 25, 1921, Clara grew up in a family of four children, all at least 11 years older than her (Pryor, 3). Clara’s childhood was more of one that had several babysitters than siblings, each taking part of her education. Clara excelled at the academic part of life, but was very timid among strangers. School was not a particularly happy point in her life, being unable to fit in with her rambunctious classmates after having such a quiet childhood. The idea of being a burden to the family was in Clara’s head and felt that the way to win the affection of her family was to do extremely well in her classes to find the love that she felt was needed to be earned. She was extremely proud of the positive attention that her achievement of an academic scholarship (Pryor, 12). This praise for her accomplishment in the field of academics enriched her “taste for masculine accomplishments”. Her mother however, began to take notice of this and began to teach her to “be more feminine” by cooking dinners and building fires (Pryor, 15). The 1830’s was a time when the women of the United States really began to take a stand for the rights that they deserved (Duiker, 552). Growing up in the mist of this most likely helped Barton become the woman she turned out to be.
Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico City on July 7, 1907. Though she wanted many to believe that she was born in 1910, the year of the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution. Her father was a photographer of Hungarian Jewish decent, and her mother was Spanish and Native American. From an early age Frida's life would be marked by years of physical suffering. At the age of six she was stricken with polio, this left her right leg to appear much thinner than the other, as well as leaving her with a limp. Though she suffered dearly as a child, she was fearless and brave. She was also extremely intelligent.
...or instance, hepatitis C virus), biological molecules (such as cyclic adenosine monophosphate), and Human Immunodeficiency (HIV) virus (Bauman et. al. 2011). Rosalyn had went farther in the world of science than anyone including her self thought was possible (Bauman et. al. 2011). Rosayln and Berson changed history, altered the way science was perceived and their time, and how today we see and research science.
Ella was born on April 25, 1917, in Newport News, Virginia. In school, she sang in glee club, but her passion was to rather dance. In the 1920s and early 1930s , jazz began to sweep the nation. In 1932, Fitzgerald’s mother was killed in a car accident. After her mother’s death, the two sisters were shifted among her family members and Ella became a restless, unhappy teen. She usually w...
Her dreams of being a scientist came true as she worked hard to achieve her degree and make startling discoveries. Among her accomplishments she made the discovery of isozymes of kynurenine formamidase in the basterium streptomyces parvulus which, prior to her findings, were known to only exist in higher organisms. Dr. Emeagwali also proved that cancer gene expression could be inhibited by antisense methodology, which she says can lead to better treatment for cancer. She is a well-accredited scientist that many people have never heard of. All fields of science affect the lives of many people, but the inventors are left out.
Evelyn was born on May 1, 1924 in Washington, DC. Her father, William Boyd, had many jobs to help support her family. Her mother, Julia Boyd, was a secretary and also support her family. When she was just five years old, she and her family lived through the Great Depression which caused her father to have many jobs. A little after, her parents separated. Her mother had an older sister and moved in with her and brought Evelyn as well. She began to attend Elementary, Junior high, and high school as she got older. She wanted to get an education and want to decide on what her career may be. The high school she attended was Dunbar high and was aspired by two Math teachers, Ulysses Basset and Mary Cromwell. This was the start of her discovering her career. When she graduated from high school, she attended Smith College with much her from herself and her family. Her mother sis...
Lillian Wald was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 10, 1867 into a cultured Jewish family. Both of her parents were immigrants, her mother was from Germany and her father was from Poland. The Walds’ moved from Cincinnati to New York where Lillian’s father, Max, dealt in optical wares in Rochester. She had the advantage of a very good education; not only did she know Latin, but she also spoke German and French as well as English.
...he end of the 1960s and early 1970s, Moore’s health was declining because of a series of strokes. It killed her on February 5, 1972 (Bloom 21). On February 5, 1972, Marianne Moore died at the age of 84. A new edition of her “Complete Poems,” with her final revisions, appeared nine years later.
Throughout her life, Elizabeth Blackwell worked constantly to do better. Because of her courageous acceptance and completion of medical school she helped women to receive a better education than they might have had. Elizabeth Blackwell opened doors for women in the medical field across the world. Each year, because of Elizabeth Blackwell, a female doctor receives the Elizabeth Blackwell Award for contributing to the cause of women in the medical field. Women across the world are now doctors, helping others. Elizabeth Blackwell showed people that they do not have to be what society labels them as and to work hard and have courage to never give up.
During her childhood, her father struggled with an alcohol addiction. This caused problems with their economic situation and part of the reason that Amelia and her sister had to keep moving and attend several different schools. She ended up graduating from Hyde Park High School in 1915 and continued her education at The Ogontz School for Young Ladies. She left Ogontz in the middle of her second year after visiting her sister and started work as a nurse’s aide at Toronto’s Spadina Military Hospital. She left her job and entered the pre-med program at Columbia ...
When most people think of the Scientific Revolution, they think of scientists such as Galileo, Newton, Brahe, and Boyle. However, many people do not even know about the many women who played a vital role in the scientific advancements of this period. Even when these women were alive, most of society either ignored them or publicly disapproved their unladylike behavior. Because of this, these women were often forgotten from history, and very little is known about the majority of them. Although their names rarely appear in history books, the female scientists of the Scientific Revolution still impacted the world of science in several ways. In fact, all of the scientists listed above had a woman playing an influential role assisting them in their research. However, assisting men in their studies was not the only role open to women; several women performed experimentation and research on their own, or advancing science in some other way, even though the society of the time looked down upon and even resisted their studies.
Stein was born on February 3, 1874 into upper middle class surroundings in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. When she was 3 years old the family moved to Vienna and then on to Paris before returning to America in late 1878. Gertrude and her brother Leo became very close although he was two years her senior. They found like interests and became devoted allies through much of their early lives. Stein was eight years old when she made her first attempt at writing. Reading became an obsession for her beginning with Shakespeare and books on natural history.[2] In school she was fascinated with the structuring of sentences. She once said, “"I suppose other things may be more exciting to others...I like the feeling the everlasting feeling of sentences as they diagram themselves.[3]"
Gertrude Stein was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania on February 3rd, 1874. She was the the youngest out of five children. Her family was considered to be a upperclass German-Jewish-American family. Her father, Daniel Stein, was a wealthy Businessman with real estate holding and was the director of San Francisco's street car lines, the Market Street Railway. Her mothers name was Amelia Stein. German and English were the the two
Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi. Her parents are Vernita Lee and Vernon Winfrey who were 18 and 20 at the time of Oprah’s birth. Her Grandmother who took care of her early in life was Hattie Mae Lee. Oprah's mother moved north to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to find work. She planned to move Oprah there once she had secured a job. Oprah stayed with her grandmother on her farm in Mississippi. (www.about.com, 2000).