1988 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.pdf

I I I INSTITUTE FOR SCIENTIFIC lNFORMATION@ 3501 MARKET ST.PHILADELPHIA. PA 19104 The 1988 Nobel Priie in Medicine: Sir James W. Black, Gertrude B. EBion, and George H. Hitchings Ennoble Pharmaceutical Research Number 30 jUIV 24, 1989 The work of the three Nobel laureates is examined. Their development of highly successful drugs was influenced by a keen understanding of basic biochemical processes and of the concept of selec- tivity. In addition to presenting brief biographical sketches of the laureates, the essay considers their most-cited papers and examines how this work has been reflected in ISl” research fronts. The Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska lrt- stitute, Stoekholrn, Sweden, awarded the 1988 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine jointly to Sir James W. Black, King’s Col- lege Hospital Medieal School, London, UK, and Gertrude B. Elion and George H. Hitch- ings, scientists emeriti, Wellcome Research Laboratories, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. They were honored for their discoveries of “important principles for drug treatment.” 1 In characterizing their award-winning work, the Nobel Assembly noted that they developed drugs that have proved essential in the treatment of a number of disorders. However, their work has an even larger sig- nificance: “While drug development had earlier mainly been built on chemical mod- ification of natural products they introdtteed a more rational approach based on the un- derstanding of basic bioehernicrd and physio- logical processes. ” 1 It is also significant that the three recipients were not academics, as are most Nobel laureates.2 Most of their work was done in the pharmaceutical in- dustry. The last Nobelists honored for work of pharmaceutical significance were Sune K. Bergsttim and Bengt I. %rnuelsson, both of the Karolinska Institute, and John R. Vane, William Harvey Research Institute, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical Col- lege, London, in 1982, for discoveries con- cerning prostagkmdins and related biolo