ELIZABETH BLACKBURN

Elizabeth Blackburn's won the Nobel Prize in Medicine



Abstract

The field of science and medicine is largely untapped. Different scientists have developed different theories. Some of them have proved to be a breakthrough in the field of science. One such work is done by Blackburn along with her two partners. The three of them have also received Nobel Prize in the field of medicine. This paper aims at discussing the life of a noble prize winner, Elizabeth Blackburn. The paper is divided into two sections. First section presents the biography of the scientist including details about her childhood, family-child, family adult, education, career and awards. The second section of the paper elaborates on the science of the award. It explains the state of biology before the work and the impact of research on the lives of individuals.

Elizabeth Blackburn's won the Nobel Prize in Medicine

Introduction

Elizabeth H. Blackburn was born in 1948 in Hobart. She has won many awards in the field of science and research. She has received an award for her research on telomeres, DNA sequences that protect the ends of chromosomes in the same way as plastic tips prevent shoelaces from fraying.

Early Childhood

Elizabeth Blackburn was a brilliant child by birth. Her grandfather and great-grandfather were geologists. Moreover, two of the brothers of his father were physicians. She was very interested in Science and research since her childhood days. She was always into studying and exploring scientific objects (Brady, 2011). Blackburn studied biochemistry and soon became interested in the study chromosomes.

Educational Background

Elizabeth Blackburn studied Biochemistry at the University of Melbourne and a PhD in Molecular Biology in 1975 by the University of Cambridge. She started studying telomeres in the Yale University in 1975. She began to create artificial telomeres to study cell division for the purpose of controlling them. She was director of the laboratory and in 1993 director of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, the first woman to win that position at the University of California. She also served as a professor of biology and physiology at the University of San Francisco (Brady, 2011). In 2001, Elizabeth Blackburn joined the Bioethics Committee of the U.S., but retired in 2004 due to the restrictions that the administration of George W. Bush imposed on stem cell research. She also found that the telomeres prevent aging and degradation of the chromosomes. Blackburn, along with Carol Greider, discovered the enzyme telomerase, which helps to form the telomere DNA (Brady, 2011).

Awards

Elizabeth Blackburn has received numerous prestigious awards. Some of them are listed below.

Eli Lilly Research Award for Microbiology and Immunology (1988)

National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology (1990)

California Scientist of the Year (1999)

American Cancer Society Medal of Honor (2000)

Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences from the Wiley Foundation (2006)

Blackburn won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2009 along with Carol W. Greider, Jack W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak (Alice, 2007). The award consisted of 10 million Swedish kronor, equivalent to $ 1.6 million dollars, divided equally among the three winners, plus ...