How It Works Book Of Great Inventors & Their Creation

151

GREAT I NVENTORS AND THEIR CREATIONS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

men still dominated, and despite her outstanding Right: Replica ofDNA model
academic record, Elion found it impossible to get originally assembled by
funding to take on a PhD. By doing severalpoorly English biologist Francis
paidjobs, she managed to save up enough money Crick (1916-2004) and
to enrolat night school, and she receiveda American molecular
masters degree in 1941, but never received a PhD. biologis tjames Watson
Thatyear, many menwere out ofthe country (b.1928) in 1953.Along the
fighting in the Second World War, so some length ofeach helical
laboratories were employing women. In 1944, strand are the purines
after severalyears ofworking in unchallenging and pyrimidines.
jobs in the chemical industry, Elion began work
as a senior research chemist in the New York
laboratory ofthe pharmaceuticals company
Burroughs Wellcome. There she worked as an
assistant to American doctor and chemist George
Hitchings (1905-1998), who encouraged her to
learn as much as possible and to follow her own
lines ofenquiry.

Biochemistry

Although Elion had studied chemistry, her quest
to produce medicines had led her to biochemistry
(the chemistry ofliving things), pharmacology
(the study of how drugs work) and virology (the
study ofviruses). By the 1940s, biochemists had
discovered thata chemical called DNA
(deoxyribonucleicacid) present in the cell nucleus
was involved in cell replication.They hadworked

' Biochemists
discovered that
DNAwas involved in
cell replication'

In 1960. Engl1sh trilnsplam p1onee•·

Roy Caine (lll930) te ·ted 6· 1P.ut d«Ji}

152

------------------------------------------------------------~ERTRVDEELION

Above: Today there are dozens ofanti-viral drugsavailable,
including this one, Valtrex"'.The active ingredientin this drug
is a derivative ofacyclovir, developed by Elion. Valtrex'" is used
to treatall kinds ofherpes infections, includinggenital herpes,
shingles andAIDS-related herpes.

out the constituent parts of DNA, butits double increase life expectancy, and Above: Molecular
helixstructure would not be worked out until1953- some children evenwent into full structure of
The most important constituents aresmall remission. The drug is still used today in 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP),
molecules called purines and pyrimidines, which anti-cancer chemotherapy. developed by Elion and
join together in pairs along the length ofthe much Hutchings in1951.6-MP has
larger DNA molecule. Elion wonderedwhether With increasing knowledge ofbiochemical averysimilarshape to
alteringthese molecules might somehow confuse reactions at the heart ofcell biology, Elionwenton purine molecules found
a virus ora bacterium orstop the uncontrolled to synthesize several medicines effective against along the lengthof DNA,and
reproduction ofcancer cells. So she and Hitchings a range ofbacterial diseases, including malaria, it interrupts their formation,
setabout engineering new ones. meningitis and septicaemia. In1958, she produced inhibiting the rampant
the first medicine that could suppress the reproduction ofDNA
Elion and Hitchings made theirfirst immune system, making organ transplants safer characteristicofcancers.
breakthrough in 1948. One oftheir purines, (see box).ln1981, aftermore than a decade's work,
2,6-diaminopurine, was found to restrict the she created the first anti-viral dr ug, acyclovir, Top Left: False-colour
reproduction ofbacteria, and to slow the growth which is theactive substance in anti-herpes electron micrograph of
oftumours in mice. Over the next few years, Elion medicine such as Zovirax"' andValtrex®.Gertrude herpes simplexviruses.
tested more than 100 other engineered purines. In Elion received many awards for her Each virus comprises DNA in
1951, trials in rats suggested that one ofthem, groundbreaking work in chemotherapy, a protei n'cage' (the capsid),
6-mercaptopurine (6-MPJ, could fight leukaemia. including, in1988, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or surrounded bya fatty
At the time, there was little hope for patients with Medicine.She shared the prize with George membrane (the envelope). A
leukaemia, mostofwhom were children and most Hitchings and Scottish pharmacologistjames virus uses resources inside a
ofwhom diedwithin a few months ofdiagnosis. Black (b.1924), for 'discoveries ofimportant host cell to reproduce; Elion
When 6-MP was tested in humans, itwas found to principles for drug treatment'. produced the first effective
anti-viral drugs,which
inhibit this process.

153

GREAT I NVENTORS A ND THEIR CREATIONS --------------t-~r---=:::.__----=----

(born 8june 1955)

I n modern life, itseems increasingly hard for
an individual to inventsomething that truly
changes the world. However, one person
who did just thatis English physicistand
computerscientistTim Berners-Lee. In1990, he
launched the World Wide Web.

Timothy Berners-Leewas bornin London. His
parents were both computerscientists. As a boy,
Tim became interested in electronics after
building circuits to control his model train set. He
studied physics at Oxford University; while he
was there, he built his first computer. After
graduating in 1976, he worked as a computer
systems engineerat various companies.

In 1980, Berners-Lee spent six months at the
European Organization for Nuclear Research, a
particle physics facility in the outskirts ofGeneva,
on the borderbetween france and Switzerland. It
is better known by theacronym CERN, which
derives from the facility's original name, Conseil
Europeen pour Ia Recherche Nucleaire. While at

154



GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR CREATIONS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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Above: During the196osmost large businesses and universities had a Above: A1994screensbotofthe firstweb browser, World Wide Web. Berners-Lee
centralized 'mainframe' computerlike this. Computer networking, upon wrote thesoftware exclusively for NEXT computers, like theone he used at CERN.
which the Web depends, originated in efforts to establish time-shared access The softwarecould readand edit pages written in html, open linked pagesand
to these machines via terminals distributed through the organization.
download any linked computerfiles.
CERN, Berners-Lee devised a computer system,
for his own personal use, to store and retrieve
information. Named ENQUIRE, this was a
forerunner ofthe Web. It was based upon
hyperlinks, cross-references in one document
that enable a computer to calJ up another,
related document.

In 1984, Berners-Lee was back at CERN, on a
computingfellowship programme. He became
frustrated bythe lack ofcompatibility between
different computer systems, and between
documents written using different software
applications. In a memo he sentto his manager in
1989, Berners-Lee set out his vision ofa 'universal
linked informationsystem' with which to
organize the huge amounts ofinformation
producedat CERN. He proposed that a 'web of
links' would be more useful than the 'fixed,
hierarchical system' that existed. Documents
available oncomputers within CERN's network
would contain hyperlinks to other documents,
including those on different computers. In 1990,
Berners-Lee's manager encouraged him to
spendsome time - as a side project - on
developing his idea.

During the autumn of1990, Berners-Lee, along
with his colleague, Belgian computer scientist
Robert Cailliau (b.1947), createdaU the now-
familiar fundamental components ofthe World
Wide Web. The universal language he invented
for writing linked documents {web pages) is 'html'
- hypertext markup language. The software that

156

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _TJMBERNERS-LEE

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' Within a few short years, most fwo vP.o y important technologies underpn.ned
people in the world had been
Tom Bemers Lee's inventi011 ot the Wotlo W1dc
affected directlyby its existence '

responds to 'requests' from hyperlinks is called a
'web server', a term that also refers to the
hardware that hosts the web pages. And the
language, or protocol, computers use to
communicate the hyperlink requests is 'http'-
hypertext transfer protocol. Berners-Lee had to
write the first web browser, the application used
to view the documents hosted on web servers. He
called his browser 'WorldWideWeb'. Berners-Lee
also wrote the first web pages, which he
published on his serverin December1990. Itwas
on25th ofthat month that Berners-Lee first
'surfed' from one web page to another, via http, by
clickinga hyperlink in his browser.

Top: plaque at CERN Going global been affected directlyby its existence, and
commemorating the millions were already regularly 'surfing' from
invention ofthe Web. The following year, Berners-Lee made available document to docmnent online.
his software to people outside CERN, and the idea
Left: Theactuai'NeXTcube' Tim Berners-Lee has received a huge number
computer Berners-Lee used quicklycaught on. By1994, the Web had grown so ofaccolades for his invention, which he gave free
to host the firstweb page, much that each 'resource'- a document or image, to theworld without patents or rights. In 1994, he
and to write thesoftware for example - neededa unique 'address' on the founded the World Wide Web Consortium,
necessary to implement his which helps keep the Web workingsmoothly and
idea. The computerwas Internet. In consultationwith the Web aims to foster its future growth. He also
connected to the local community, Berners-Lee created the format for campaigns to keep the Internet 'neutral'- free of
network at CERN. Asticker web addresses, called the 'uniform resource restrictions on contentandwhat kinds of
on the processing unit reads: computers may be connected.
'This machine isa server. DO locator' (URL). After1994, the Web spread rapidly
NOTPOWEROOWNI' beyond academicand military circles. Withina
few shortyears, most people in the world had

157

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CERN oo;oc • Tim Bemers-Lee, CERN /DO
March 1989
Info rmation Management: A Proposal •

Information Management: A Proposal •

Abstract

This propo~ concerns the management of general inform\ltion about accelerators and experiments at

CERN. It discu:;ses the problems of loss of infonn:ttion about complex evolving systems and derives a
solution based on a distributed hypertext syt!\tem .

Keywords: Hypertext, Computer confcrencing, Document retrieval. Informatio n management. r roject

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PHOTOGRAPHS qutemol.sourceforge.net: 155 (cr) of memorabiliaand we apologise for any
unintentionalerrorsoromissions, which will
The publishers would like to thank the Rex Features: Sonny Meddle: 102(cl) be corrected in future editions ofthis book.
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