Elion decided to dedicate her life to medicine after the deaths of her grandfather from stomach cancer and fiancÉ from an inflammation of the heart lining. In 1937, she graduated summa cum laude from Hunter College with a degree in chemistry, but her hopes of becoming a research scientist were dashed by 15 rejections for financial assistance from graduate schools throughout the country. Not only did she face discrimination in academia, she also couldn’t land a job because of her gender, so she enrolled in secretarial school. Looking back, she said: “I hadn’t been aware that any doors were closed to me until I started knocking on them.”