
Gertrude Elion's “antiviral odyssey” - tdhttt
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/08/gertrude-elion-antivirals-coronavirus-remdesivir/
======
michalu
Not sure what to think of this article, it reads like science version of
Buzzfeed.

> Meet the woman who gave the world antiviral drugs > Then Gertrude Elion
> showed the doubters "what I could do on my own."

It totally disregards the role of some dozens of scientists in the process who
came before her. It doesn't even mention Dr. Howard Schaeffer who actually
discovered Acyclovir and went on to develop it with the help of Elion. Sadly,
Schaeffer doesn't even have his own wikipedia page.

From wiki page on Aciclovir:

Nucleosides isolated from a Caribbean sponge, Cryptotethya crypta, were the
basis for the synthesis of aciclovir. It was codiscovered by Howard Schaeffer
following his work with Robert Vince, S. Bittner and S. Gurwara on the
adenosine analog acycloadenosine which showed promising antiviral activity.
Later, Schaeffer joined Burroughs Wellcome and continued the development of
aciclovir with pharmacologist Gertrude B. Elion ...

------
beagle3
The Wikipedia page has many of the details (though not the narrative) of this
article, as well as some more:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_B._Elion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_B._Elion)

Also, it says she was Jewish; The meaning of her last name, Elion, in hebrew
is "Superior" \- apparently a fitting name given her achievements.

------
ginko
Not “a woman”. “The woman”

~~~
dang
That's a software thing. Most titles that say "the man who" or "the woman who"
use the definite article as a clickbait trick so HN's debaiter rewrites them.
Occasionally it ought to be the other way and we correct those back.

Btw if you submit a title and the software rewrites it in a way that damages
the meaning, you can always change it back using the 'edit' link. Just please
don't use that to make it baity again.

Edit: I've changed it again to include the actual name of "the woman" and the
phrase that (according to the article) she used to describe her own work. That
seems much better than "the woman who gave the world", and also more
respectful.

