HELEN ELIZABETH BLACKBURN (Tasmania, 1948)

Elizabeth Helen Blackburn was the first person to study the "telomeres, the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes that are necessary both for the control of cell division to maintain the integrity and stability of chromosomes. During their study of telomeres, Elizabeth Blackburn discovered the "telomerase" enzyme that forms the telomeres during DNA replication. The enzyme telomerase is related to the biological clock that controls the age of cells: the lack of telomerase causes in each cell division telomeres shorten, so that after a certain number of divisions the cells become unable to divide and die . Normally, cells produce telomerase are leaving with age. However, cancer cells produce telomerase much so that the cells live longer and are able to divide more (tumor formation). Telomerase was discovered by Elizabeth Blackburn is therefore related to processes of cellular aging and cancer, two facts important for basic biology and medicine. The discovery may allow Blackburn to find substances capable of inhibiting the action of telomerase, which would help in cancer treatment and the eradication of fungal infections that occur in immunosuppressed patients.

Born in Hobart (Tasmania) daughter of a couple of doctors, Elizabeth Blackburn studied Biochemistry at the University of Melbourne (Australia), and in 1975 earned his Ph.D. in molecular biology from Cambridge University (England), his doctoral thesis dealt with the Nucleic acid sequencing. Between 1975 and 1977 he worked at Yale University through a postdoctoral fellowship, where he began to study the structure of telomeres with John Gall. From 1977 he worked at the University of California at Berkeley, where he studied with Jack W. Szostak behavior of telomeres in diverse organisms. In 1984, Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol W. Greider discovered the enzyme telomerase, and in 1985 succeeded in isolating and began to create artificial telomeres to study the control of cell division. In 1986 Blackburn won a place at this university as a professor and laboratory director. After 13 years at the University of California at Berkeley, in 1990 he moved to San Francisco where he has worked in two departments: biochemistry, biophysics and microbiology-immunology. In 1993 he was appointed director of the department of Microbiology and Immunology, becoming the first woman to hold such a post at the University of California. He is currently professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics Laboratory and leader of Blackburn, a world leader in the manipulation of telomerase activity in cells.

Elizabeth Blackburn is president of the American Society of Cell Biology, and belongs also to the U.S. Institute of Medicine and the Royal Society of London. Among the many awards he has received is the Eli Lilly Award in Microbiology (1988), the prize of the American Academy of Sciences in Molecular Biology (1990), the Gairdner Foundation (1998), the Australia Prize, the Medal of Honor of the American Cancer Society, the prize Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors Foundation for Research on Cancer (2001), the 26th annual award from Bristol-Meyers Squibb, cancer research, and Dr. AH Heineken Prize for Medicine. In 1999 he was named "Scientist of the Year" in California, and in 2005 received the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Sciences. In 2006 he received, along with John Gall, Jack W. Szostak and Carol Greider, the Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, one of the most prestigious scientific awards. In 2007, also with Gall and Greider, has received the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, awarded annually by Columbia University by discoveries in biochemistry or biology.

During his stay in England, Elizabeth Blackburn who met her future husband, John Sedat, who also studied molecular biology at Cambridge and is currently a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California at San Francisco. Married in 1975, took his only son, Benjamin, in 1986, the same year that Elizabeth was appointed professor at UC Berkeley. Blackburn has written several articles in relation to motherhood, which has championed the importance of spending enough time caring for the sons or daughters. In "Balancing Family and Career: One Way That Worked," Blackburn said that every woman has the right to choose a career without fear of being discriminated against because of their potential motherhood: "It makes no sense that the career is closed to women because of a temporary situation. "