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Hitchings' and Elion's approach to their work
was highly innovative.
Contrary to most previous drug developers, who had
depended largely on trial-and-error methods, they
actively designed drugs based on knowledge of how
cells worked. Although Watson and Crick had yet to
discover the double-helix structure of DNA,
scientists did know that cells need nucleic acids
to reproduce. Hitchings theorized that by
interfering with the DNA of cancer cells, bacteria,
and viruses—which, because they need very large
amounts of DNA to reproduce, should be particularly
vulnerable to disruptions of their lifecycles -
they could prevent the unwanted cells from
replicating and thus stop the spread of disease.
The goal was a drug that would disable the disease
cells without harming normal cells.
Hitchings assigned Elion to work on the purines,
two of the four bases that make up DNA. Elion
created slightly altered versions of the purines,
hoping to make one that would be similar enough to
the real base that the disease cell would be fooled
into incorporating it but different enough that it
would be unable to use it to reproduce. "We used
to call it a rubber donut," she said. "It
looked like the real thing, but it wouldn't
work."
Even as Elion became immersed in her research,
she continued to aspire to the Ph.D. she had as yet
been unable to earn. Enrolling at the Brooklyn
Polytechnic Institute, she commuted three nights a
week from her job in Westchester County, to
Brooklyn, and home to the Bronx. After two years,
however, the dean demanded that she either work
full-time on her doctorate or leave school.
Unwilling to give up the exciting job that had been
so difficult to get, Elion reluctantly gave up her
dreams of a Ph.D.
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