Elizabeth Blackburn facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Elizabeth Blackburn
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Elizabeth Blackburn in 2024
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Elizabeth Helen Blackburn
26 November 1948 |
| Citizenship | Australian and American |
| Education |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Molecular biology |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Sequence studies on bacteriophage ØX174 DNA by transcription (1974) |
| Doctoral advisor | Frederick Sanger |
| Doctoral students | Carol W. Greider |
Elizabeth Helen Blackburn (born 26 November 1948) is an amazing Australian-American scientist. She won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009. She used to be the president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
In 1984, Elizabeth Blackburn and her student, Carol W. Greider, made a huge discovery. They found an important enzyme called telomerase. This enzyme helps to protect our chromosomes. For this work, she shared the Nobel Prize with Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak. She was the first Australian woman to win a Nobel Prize!
Elizabeth Blackburn also worked on medical ethics. This means she thought about the right and wrong ways to use science. She was even removed from a special science council because of her views. Many scientists supported her, saying she was fired for her scientific advice.
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Early life and education
Elizabeth Helen Blackburn was born in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. This was on November 26, 1948. She was the second of seven children. Both of her parents were doctors.
When she was four, her family moved to Launceston. She went to Broadland House Church of England Girls' Grammar School. Later, her family moved to Melbourne. There, she attended University High School. She did very well in her final exams.
Elizabeth then went to the University of Melbourne. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1970. She also got a Master of Science degree in 1972. Both of these degrees were in biochemistry.
She then moved to England to study at the University of Cambridge. She earned her PhD in 1975. She worked with a famous scientist named Frederick Sanger. They developed ways to study DNA.
Career and research
After her PhD, Elizabeth Blackburn did more research at Yale University. She studied a tiny creature called Tetrahymena thermophila. She noticed something special about its DNA. The ends of its chromosomes had a repeating pattern. This pattern was a sequence of letters (TTAGGG) that repeated over and over.
This discovery led to more research. Blackburn and her colleague, Jack Szostak, found that these special ends protected chromosomes. They showed that these sequences acted like caps. These caps stopped chromosomes from breaking down. This was a very important finding!
They also realized that a special enzyme must be adding these caps. This led Elizabeth Blackburn and her student, Carol W. Greider, to a huge breakthrough. In 1985, they discovered the enzyme they were looking for. They called it telomerase.
What is telomerase?
In 1984, Elizabeth Blackburn was a professor at the University of California, San Francisco. She was studying the telomere. Telomeres are like protective caps on the ends of our chromosomes. Think of them like the plastic tips on shoelaces. They stop the shoelaces from fraying.
Our cells divide many times. Each time a cell divides, its chromosomes get a little shorter. This is like a shoelace getting shorter each time it's used. If the telomeres get too short, the cell can't divide properly. This can lead to cells getting old or even dying.
Telomerase is an enzyme that helps fix this problem. It adds new pieces to the ends of the telomeres. This makes the telomeres longer again. By keeping telomeres long, telomerase helps cells keep dividing. This is important for keeping our bodies healthy.
Elizabeth Blackburn remembered the moment they found telomerase. She said that Carol Greider had done an experiment. They looked at the results, which showed a clear pattern. It was a sign that they had found something real and very important.
In 1978, Blackburn started working at the University of California, Berkeley. Later, in 1990, she moved to the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She even led a department there for several years. She retired from UCSF at the end of 2015.
In 2015, Elizabeth Blackburn became the president of the Salk Institute. This is a famous research center in California. People admired her for her science and leadership. She retired from this role in 2017.
Nobel Prize
For their amazing work on telomeres and telomerase, Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider, and Jack Szostak won the 2009 Nobel Prize. This discovery changed how we understand cells. It showed how chromosomes are protected. It also explained how cells age.
For example, adding telomerase to cells can help them live longer. This shows how important this enzyme is for cell aging. Scientists also found that telomerase is very active in cancer cells. This helps cancer cells grow and divide without stopping.
Because of this, telomeres are believed to play a role in many types of cancer. These include cancers of the pancreas, bone, and lung. Elizabeth Blackburn continues to research telomeres and telomerase. She studies how they affect cell aging and diseases.
Bioethics and science
Elizabeth Blackburn was part of the President's Council on Bioethics in 2002. This council advised the government on science and medicine. She believed that human embryonic cell research was important. This was different from the views of the government at the time.
Because of this, she was removed from the council in 2004. Many scientists were upset by this. Over 170 scientists signed a letter to the president. They said she was fired because of her scientific advice. They felt that science was being controlled by politics.
Blackburn herself wrote that scientific research should be about finding the truth. She worried that science was being used for political reasons. She felt that experts were being chosen based on their political views.
Current research
In recent years, Elizabeth Blackburn has studied how stress affects telomeres. She looks at how things like mindfulness meditation might help. Studies suggest that long-term stress can make cells age faster. For example, women who experienced violence had shorter telomeres. This might lead to more health problems for them.
At the University of California San Francisco, Blackburn's lab still studies telomeres. They want to understand how telomere health affects cell aging. Many long-term diseases are linked to problems with telomeres. Her team is looking at how changing telomerase activity affects cells.
Personal life
Elizabeth Blackburn met her husband, John Sedat, while working in England. He got a job at Yale University. So, she decided to finish her research there too. She said that love brought her to a very important choice for her career. They moved to New Haven and got married soon after.
Elizabeth Blackburn now lives between La Jolla and San Francisco with her husband. They have a son, who was born in 1986. She is a strong supporter of scientific research and good science policy.
Awards and honours
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Elizabeth Blackburn has received many awards for her important work.
- She won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009.
- She was made a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2010. This is a very high honor in Australia.
- She was elected to many important science groups. These include the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences.
- In 2007, Time magazine named her one of the 100 people who shape our world.
See also
In Spanish: Elizabeth Blackburn para niños
