The chemist Gertrude Elion (1918 -1999) was a trailblazer for women in American science, and the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Medicine. At an early age, her ambition to find new medicines led her to the study of chemistry, but when she graduated from college at age 19 in 1937, she found it almost impossible to land a job in the field. Most employers would not hire a woman to perform scientific work. Gertrude Elion refused to be deterred. She worked wherever she could, often for little or no money, until at last she found a stable position at Burroughs Wellcome, where she was allowed to fulfill her potential as a scientist. For more than 40 years, she studied the chemical composition of disease cells. Within a few years, this approach led to the development of the first successful drugs for the treatment of acute leukemia. As her responsibilities expanded, she began led larger and larger teams, discovering compounds such as allopurinol, used for the treatment of gout and to relieve the side effects of chemotherapy. Her discovery of azathioprine, which suppresses the immune system's rejection of foreign tissue made kidney transplants between unrelated donors possible. She later led the team that developed accyclovir, the first successful anti-viral medication. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world owe their lives to Gertrude Elion's patient determination. In 1998, her discoveries won her the Nobel Prize for Medicine, although she was not a medical doctor and had never received a doctorate in her own field. In this podcast, recorded during the Academy of Achievement's 1998 Summit in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, she downplays the scope of her own scientific achievement, while recalling the challenges she encountered as a woman in the world of science and medicine.