Edward C. Taylor

Edward Curtis Taylor, Jr. (August 3, 1923 – November 22, 2017) was an American chemist who designed and synthesized the chemotherapy drug pemetrexed (brand name Alimta), an inhibitor of purine biosynthesis, with grant support from the U.S. National Cancer Institute, NIH. As of 2009, royalties for this drug from Eli Lilly & Co. paid to Princeton University were sufficient to completely finance a state-of-the-art 263,000-square-foot (24,400 m2) chemistry laboratory building. Taylor studied for his PhD from 1946 to 1949 at Cornell University with Professor Cornelius Cain. Taylor trained 187 PhD students.