AZATHIOPRINE TABLETS, 50 MG, containing 10 tray IN BOX
Inscription
Azathioprine / Tablets BP / 50 mg / [...]
Production date
1996
Production organisations
H.N. NORTON & Co. LTD
Labels
This box contains azathioprine, an immunosuppressant drug originally developed for chemotherapy. Chemotherapy drugs are used to treat cancer, while immunosuppressants reduce the body's immune response and are used to treat auto-immune conditions and prevent organ rejection after transplant. The development of azathioprine by American chemists Gertrude Elion and George Hitchings in 1957 was a significant development at a time when organ rejection limited the success of the first organ transplants. Leeds has long been a pioneer in the field of organ transplant, seeing arguably the UK’s first successful deceased donor transplant in 1962, a rare transplant for a child in 1974 and the UK’s first single and double hand transplants in 2012 and 2016 respectively.
Unlike her male colleagues, Elion faced significant challenges to establish her career as a chemist. Despite graduating at the top of her university cohort, her PhD applications were rejected and she struggled to secure work, resorting to unpaid lab work. However, reductions in the male workforce during the Second World War created new opportunities for women and Elion was hired by Hitchings at Burroughs Wellcome in 1944. Together, Hitchings and Elion developed a range of successful, pioneering drugs by replacing the existing ‘trial and error’ approach to drug development with systematic ‘rational’ drug design and specifically targeting drugs to interrupt DNA replication.
After Hitchings’ retirement in 1967, Elion became the head of her department and shifted her focus to antiviral drugs. Owing to their novel approach, Elion and Hitchings are credited with altering the pace and landscape of drug design and were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1988, making Elion only the fifth woman to receive this prize at the time.
Ellen Coleman, Hidden Histories Project Researcher
