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Blackburn is married to John W. Sedat, and has one child.
Blackburn is married to John W. Sedat, and has one child.


She was cited in the Wall Street Journal on October 6, 2009 as an example of why politicians should not try to block immigration to the U.S. because she is a foreigner.
She was cited in the Wall Street Journal on October 6, 2009 as an example of why politicians should not try to block immigration to the U.S. because she is "a foreigner".


==Awards and honors==
==Awards and honors==

Revision as of 23:00, 9 October 2009

Elizabeth Blackburn
Born (1948-11-26) November 26, 1948 (age 75)
Hobart, Tasmania
NationalityAustralian & American dual citizen
Alma materUniversity of Melbourne,
University of Cambridge, England, UK
AwardsHeineken Prize, Lasker Award, Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, L'Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science (2008) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2009)
Scientific career
Fieldsmolecular biology
InstitutionsYale University, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, San Francisco, the Salk Institute
Doctoral studentsinclude Carol W. Greider, Randy Scheckman[citation needed]

Elizabeth Helen Blackburn, FRS (born November 26, 1948) is an Australian born biological researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who studies the telomere, a structure at the end of chromosomes that protects the chromosome. Blackburn co-discovered telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes the telomere. For this work, she was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, sharing it with Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak. She also worked in medical ethics, and was controversially fired from the President's Council on Bioethics.

Early life and education

Blackburn was born in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Her parents, Harold and Marcia Blackburn, were both medical practitioners (physicians). Blackburn attended Broadland House School in Launceston, Tasmania. Her family then moved to Melbourne, Victoria, where she attended the University High School, Melbourne. After graduation from high school, Blackburn attended the University of Melbourne, residing in Janet Clarke Hall (University of Melbourne), where she earned her B.Sc. degree in 1970, and her M.Sc. degree in 1972, and Darwin College, Cambridge,[1] where she earned her Ph.D. (1975) from the University of Cambridge. Her postdoctoral study in molecular and cellular biology was at Yale University, Connecticut in 1975–77.

Work in molecular biology

In 1978, Blackburn joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Molecular Biology. In 1990, she moved across the bay to the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she served as the Department Chairwoman from 1993 to 1999. Blackburn is currently the Morris Herzstein Professor of Biology and Physiology at UCSF, and a non-resident fellow of the Salk Institute. She is the president-elect of the American Association for Cancer Research. In recent years Blackburn and her colleagues have been investigating the effect of stress on telomerase and telomeres.

Bioethics

Blackburn was appointed a member of the President's Council on Bioethics in 2001. She supported human embryonic cell research, in opposition to the Bush Administration. Her Council terms were terminated by White House directive on February 27, 2004.[2] This was followed by expressions of outrage over her removal by many scientists, who maintained that she was fired because of political opposition to her advice.[3]

"There is a growing sense that scientific research — which, after all, is defined by the quest for truth — is being manipulated for political ends," wrote Blackburn. "There is evidence that such manipulation is being achieved through the stacking of the membership of advisory bodies and through the delay and misrepresentation of their reports."[4][5]

Blackburn serves on the Science Advisory Board of the Genetics Policy Institute.

Personal

Blackburn is married to John W. Sedat, and has one child.

She was cited in the Wall Street Journal on October 6, 2009 as an example of why politicians should not try to block immigration to the U.S. because she is "a foreigner".

Awards and honors

In 2007, Blackburn was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ Brady, Catherine (2007), Elizabeth Blackburn and the story of telomeres: deciphering the ends of DNA, Cambridge: MIT Press, p. 21, ISBN 9780262026222 {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |lastauthoramp= (help)
  2. ^ Blackburn, E.; Rowley, J. (2004), "Reason as Our Guide", PLoS Biology, 2 (4): e116, doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0020116 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |lastauthoramp= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  3. ^ AP (2004-03-19). "Scientists rally around stem cell advocate fired by Bush". Retrieved 2008-05-30.
  4. ^ Bioethics and the Political Distortion of Biomedical Science Elizabeth Blackburn, N Engl J Med 350:1379-1380 (April 1, 2004)
  5. ^ A Nobel prize for a Bush critic By Andrew Leonard, Salon.com, Oct. 5, 2009 Free text. Extensive quotation from Blackburn's article.
  6. ^ "Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2009-10-05.
  7. ^ Blackburn, Greider, Szostak share Nobel: http://blogs.dnalc.org/dnaftb/2009/10/05/blackburn-greider-and-szostak-share-nobel-for-telomeres/
  8. ^ Alice Park. "The Time 100: Elizabeth Blackburn". Time Magazine. Retrieved 2008-05-30.
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