George H. Hitchings' basic research led to medications for cancers, bacterial infections, AIDS, herpes, gout, malaria, and organ rejection. A respected researcher and humanitarian, he himself explained his life had been devoted "two thirds to science and one third to philanthropy."

Among the most prolific of modern pharmaceutical scientists, he worked at the Burroughs Wellcome Company for more than thirty years before his retirement in 1975. Hitchings' contributions were based on the premise that understanding why diseased cells are different makes it possible to exploit those differences to destroy cancer cells or foreign invaders such as bacteria or viruses. For his work in finding treatments for serious diseases, Hitchings and his long-time Burroughs Wellcome collaborator Gertrude Elion shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with British pharmaceutical scientist Sir James Black. It was the first time since 1957 that pharmaceutical scientists had been awarded the prize.

George Herbert Hitchings...