Nobel cause: how I unlocked secrets of disease
March 14th 2010 21:04
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From: The Sydney Morning Herald
AUSTRALIA'S only female Nobel Prize winner says her research may hold the key to preventing many of the worst diseases.
Dr Elizabeth Blackburn was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for medicine for discovering how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.
"Think of [telomeres] as a little bit like the protective tip at the end of a shoelace that stops it from fraying," she said during a public lecture at the University of Sydney on Friday night.
Dr Blackburn said having shorter telomeres has been associated with a number of serious diseases including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and dementia.
Dr Blackburn has also found that people who live with chronic stress - such as people who are the primary carers of dementia patients or children with a disability - are much more likely to have shorter telomeres.
Dr Blackburn, who was born in Tasmania, has worked for the University of California for the past 30 years and shared the Nobel Prize with her long-time US collaborators Jack Szostak and Carol Greider.
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