Chemotherapy by Design

Abstract

In 1988 the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Sir James W. Black, Gertrude B. Elion, and George H. Hitchings “for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment.” The award to Elion and Hitchings recognized a collaboration that had yielded effective drugs for use in a remarkable variety of conditions, including cancer, gout, organ transplantation, malaria, and bacterial and viral infections. This article offers a description and analysis of the Hitchings-Elion research program: its grounding in the antimetabolite concept, and its implementation in the development of new drugs. Emphasis is on the coherence and unity of the program over more than four decades, its incorporation of both rational and empirical elements, and its character as industrialized research.