Episode 25: Rational Design of Antiviral Drugs 1988a

This episode covers one half of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which was awarded to Gertrude B. Elion and George H. Hitchings. The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute chose to give Elion and Hitchings the award, “for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment”. Topics include the discovery of the antiviral drug acyclovir, how acyclovir works to treat herpes simplex virus infections, and the rational approach to drug discovery.