astronomy

George H. Hitchings

George H. Hitchings is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand George H. Hitchings rather than just read about it. In short: George Herbert Hitchings (April 18, 1905 – February 27, 1998) was an American medical doctor who shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Sir James Black and Gertrude Elion "for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment", Hitchings specifically for his work on chemotherapy. Early life and education Hitchings was born in Hoquiam, Washington, in 1905, and grew up there, in Berkeley…

Key takeaways

George H. Hitchings belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect George H. Hitchings to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of George H. Hitchings from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

George Herbert Hitchings (April 18, 1905 – February 27, 1998) was an American medical doctor who shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Sir James Black and Gertrude Elion "for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment", Hitchings specifically for his work on chemotherapy.

Early life and education Hitchings was born in Hoquiam, Washington, in 1905, and grew up there, in Berkeley, California, San Diego, Bellingham, Washington, and Seattle. He graduated from Seattle's Franklin High School, where he was salutatorian, in 1923, and from there went to the University of Washington, from which he graduated with a degree in chemistry cum laude in 1927, after having been elected to Phi Beta Kappa as a junior the year before. That summer, he worked at the university's Puget Sound Biological Station at Friday Harbor on San Juan Island [1], and received a master's degree the next year for his thesis based on that work. From the University of Washington, Hitchings went to Harvard University as a teaching fellow, ending up at Harvard Medical School. Before getting his Ph.D. in 1933, he joined Alpha Chi Sigma in 1929.

Career and research Following his PhD, he worked at Harvard and Case Western Reserve University. In 1942, he went to work for Wellcome Research Laboratories at Tuckahoe, where he began working with Gertrude Elion in 1944. Drugs Hitchings' team worked on included 2,6-diaminopurine (a compound to treat leukemia) and p-chlorophenoxy-2,4-diaminopyrimidine (a folic acid antagonist). According to his Nobel Prize autobiography,

The line of inquiry we had begun in the 1940s [also] yielded new drug therapies for malaria (pyrimethamine), leukemia (6-mercaptopurine and thioguanine), gout (allopurinol), organ transplantation (azathioprine) and bacterial infections (co-trimoxazole (trimethoprimA)). The new knowledge contributed by our studies pointed the way for investigations that led to major antiviral drugs for herpes infections (acyclovir) and AIDS (zidovudine). In 1967 Hitchings became vice president in Charge of Research of Burroughs-Wellcome. He became Scientist Emeritus in 1976. He also served as adjunct professor of pharmacology and of experimental medicine from 1970 to 1985 at Duke University. Hitchings founded the Triangle Community Foundation in 1983. Hitchings is a member of the Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame.

Personal life His first wife, Beverly Reimer Hitchings, died in 1985. Hitchings remarried in 1989 to Joyce Carolyn Shaver-Hitchings, MD. Dr. Shaver-Hitchings died in 2009. Hitchings died on 27 February 1998 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Awards and honors Hitchings was awarded the Passano award by the Passano Foundation in 1969, and the de Villiers award in 1970. In 1972, he was awarded the Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1974. In 1989, Hitchings received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

References

External links George H. Hitchings on Nobelprize.org

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with George H. Hitchings

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what George H. Hitchings claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to George H. Hitchings before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about George H. Hitchings ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of George H. Hitchings

In research: George H. Hitchings appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses George H. Hitchings in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: George H. Hitchings is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1905 births, 1998 deaths, 20th-century American chemists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for George H. Hitchings outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study George H. Hitchings in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what George H. Hitchings means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain George H. Hitchings out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is George H. Hitchings in simple terms?

Why does George H. Hitchings matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study George H. Hitchings?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on George H. Hitchings.