Elizabeth Blackburn nabs Nobel in medicine

Elizabeth Blackburn. (Copyright University of California, San Francisco 2009. Photo: Elisabeth Fall/fallfoto.com)

Tasmanian-born microbiologist, Elizabeth Blackburn, has added a shiny Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to her awards shelf for her ground breaking research into telomeres and cell aging.

She shares the award with two colleagues, Carol Greider, from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Jack Szostak, the from Harvard Medical School for research they conducted in the 1970s and 1980s.

For a long time it was a mystery as to how chromosomes were kept from unravelling, such as during replication. It was Blackburn's pioneering research with her colleagues that revealed the role of the enzyme, telomerase reverse transcriptase, in maintaining the telomeres, which served as a 'cap' to the end of chromosomes, thus preventing them from unravelling.

It was also found that telomeres play a significant role in cell ageing. As the telomeres shorten over time, they can block cell division, although telomerase can restore the telomeres, allowing the cell to divide indefinitely. Some cancers also take advantage of telomerase to continue their cell replication.

Blackburn studied at the University of Melbourne and then Cambridge, where she earned her PhD, before moving to Yale and then the University of California, Berkeley in 1975. It was here that she did her ground breaking word on telomeres.

She's also had her fair share of controversy, being dropped from President George W. Bush's Council on Bioethics in 2004 reportedly because of her outspoken criticism of the government's policy on stem cell research.

Blackburn is the 11th Australian to receive a Nobel Prize, and the first Australian-born woman to receive the coveted Prize.

Professor Doug Hilton, director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, said Professor Blackburn’s Nobel Prize was acknowledgement of the enormous impact a fundamental discovery could have on the medical field.

“It is wonderful to see this recognition for basic science that was pursued for curiosity’s sake and which has ended up having such major implications for cancer and ageing,” Professor Hilton said.

“The Nobel Prize is a marvellous recognition of Elizabeth’s outstanding contribution to molecular biology and medical science," said Professor Kurt Lambeck, President of the Australian Academy of Science. "It reminds us once again of the importance of science for the long-term benefit to the community as a whole. Through her initial education and training and her long-term connections, Australia can take pride in her achievements.”

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