George Hitchings (1905-1998) and Gertrude Elion (1918-1999) worked together for 30 years at the Burroughs Wellcome Research Laboratories in the USA. Their pioneering work on rational drug design led to the development of the first effective leukemia drug and immunosuppressant, and to AZT, the first major drug for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. They shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Sir James Black "for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment." Here they are in their laboratory in 1948.