AIDS, a Viral Disease

In the film, Elion describes the first major drug she and her senior colleague George Hitchings developed in the early 1950s. She says that it has cured many cases of childhood leukemia but she does not name the drug or show its structure. In 1988, she and Hitchings shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery and their nucleoside metabolism methods. 

Leukemia is a cancer of the blood-forming cells (usually white blood cells) located in bone marrow that spreads to the blood. Leukemia accounts for one-third of all cancers in children. Every year about 2800 American children develop leukemia. The exact cause is unknown, although it sometimes occurs in conjunc- 

Find the full chemical name, the drug name, and chemical structure of the anti-leukemic developed by Hitchings and Elion. 

Learn about the symptoms, diagnoses, and treatments for childhood leukemia, which often strikes before age three, from the American Gancer Society at www.cancer.org. 

While the race for new antibiotics is on, the medical community endeavors to make everyone aware of some basic facts  

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