Janet Rideout is an organic chemist and one of the scientists who discovered that azidothymidine could be used as an antiretroviral agent to treat Human Immunodeficiency Virus.
15 Facts About Janet Rideout
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Janet Rideout played a key role in the development of acyclovir, the first effective treatment for herpes simplex virus.
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Janet Rideout was born Janet Litster January 6,1939, in Bennington, Vermont.
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Janet Rideout received bachelor's and master's degrees in chemistry from Mount Holyoke College.
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Janet Rideout then earned a PhD in organic chemistry from State University of New York, Buffalo in 1968.
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Shortly before graduation from the State University of New York, Buffalo, Rideout was hired by chemist and future Nobel laureate Gertrude Elion to work at a small US subsidiary of the British pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome Company.
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One branch of Janet Rideout's research involved the synthesis of purine arabinosides.
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Janet Rideout synthesized the nucleoside analog diaminopurine arabinoside, which was found to be active against herpes simplex virus and vaccinia virus and with a lower toxicity than similar compounds.
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Janet Rideout worked with a team including virologists J Bauer and P Collins to study their pharmacological properties, discovering that aminopurine arabinosides had antiviral activity that was dependent on their amino group.
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Janet Rideout was interested in AZT's other potential applications; she studied AZT as an antibacterial agent at the Burroughs Wellcome Company for several years.
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One of the compounds Janet Rideout chose to test was AZT and by the end of 1984, Wellcome had shown that AZT was active against two animal retroviruses, Harvey sarcoma virus and Friend leukemia virus.
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Janet Rideout continued to look into AZT's other potential uses, including against other viruses and bacteria.
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In 1995, after working at Burroughs Wellcome for over 26 years, and rising to the rank of associate division director, Janet Rideout joined Inspire Pharmaceuticals as Director of Chemistry.
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Janet Rideout subsequently had a number of promotions within the company: to Senior Director of Discovery in June 1996, Vice President in January 1998, and Senior Vice President of Discovery in February 2000.
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Janet Rideout helped develop ways to synthesize a type of purinergic receptor agonist called dinucleoside polyphosphates, which consist of two joined nucleosides with varying numbers of phosphate groups, so they can be further studied.