Who is Elizabeth Blackburn?
Elizabeth Blackburn is an Australian-born molecular biologist who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.
Blackburn was born in Hobart, Tasmania, in 1948 and grew up in Launceston. She studied biochemistry at the University of Melbourne before completing her doctorate at the University of Cambridge.
Telomeres are protective caps on the ends of chromosomes, similar to the plastic tips on shoelaces. Each time a cell divides, telomeres can become shorter, which is linked to aging.
Discovering telomerase
In 1984, Blackburn and her student Carol Greider discovered telomerase, an enzyme that adds DNA to telomeres. This finding helped explain how some cells, including many cancer cells, keep dividing.
Blackburn shared the Nobel Prize with Carol Greider and Jack Szostak. She was the first Australian woman to receive a Nobel Prize in a science category.
Blackburn spent most of her career in the United States, including at the University of California, San Francisco, and later served as president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Her later research explored how stress and lifestyle may affect telomere length.
Did You Know?
Blackburn has also written a popular book about telomeres called The Telomere Effect.