Elizabeth Blackburn wins Nobel Prize in Medicine

The Australian-born Elizabeth Blackburn in 1948 in Hobart, Tasmania, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is the new winner of the Nobel Medicine Prize, an award that credit was for his research on telomeres , DNA sequences that protect the ends of chromosomes in the same way as plastic tips prevent the shoelace from fraying.

Elizabeth Blackburn's research consists of two parts. On one hand, with the help of Jack Szostak (the Howard Hughes Medical Institute) found that the unique DNA sequence at telomeres prevents aging and degradation of chromosomes. On the other, along with Carol Greider (Johns Hopkins University) discovered the enzyme telomerase, which helps form the DNA of telomeres. No wonder, then, that Elizabeth Blackburn shares the award and prize of USD 1.4 billion with its partners.

The findings of Elizabeth and her team have several applications. For example, help find new therapies to cure or alleviate cancer, or to understand and improve the regenerative effect of stem cells. But where more enforcement is the discovery of telomeres and telomerase is in understanding the aging process.


You see, Blackburn concludes that as telomeres shorten (by the age of the person or be subjected to considerable stress periods) is giving way to cellular degradation, which in turn leads to wrinkles, legs cock and all that he attributed simply to the passage of time. By contrast, increased activity of the enzyme telomerase maintains the length of telomeres and this in turn allows Madonna, Claudia Di Girolamo and Sofia Loren look great but are no longer a girl.

Although this is a technology blog (and technological lifestyle) I not be the only geek who regrets, since already in such a short life we will miss wonderful inventions to come in 50 or 100 years. If an investigation like that of Elizabeth Blackburn gives us a hand to get to see the teleportation, time travel and the colonization of Mars, then this research deserves full respect for all technology lovers.