born April 18, 1905, Hoquiam, Wash., U.S.
died Feb. 27, 1998, Chapel Hill, N.C.
U.S. pharmacologist.
He earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Over nearly 40 years, he and Gertrude Elion designed a variety of new drugs that work by interfering with replication or other vital functions of specific disease-causing agents; these drugs include those to treat leukemia, severe rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases (also useful for suppressing rejection after organ transplants), gout, malaria, urinary and respiratory-tract infections, and herpes simplex. In 1988 he shared a Nobel Prize with Elion and James Black .