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Top 10 Interesting Facts about Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn

Elizabeth Helen Blackburn, AC FRS FAA FRSN is an Australian-American Nobel laureate who is the former president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

She was a biological researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, she studied the telomere. In 1984, Elizabethe co-discovered telomerase which is the enzyme that replenishes the telomere with Carol Greider. 

She was awarded for her work the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, she shared it with Jack Szostak and Carol Greider, and she became the first Australian woman Nobel laureate. 

1. Early Life

Elizabeth was born in Hobart, Tasmania on 26 November 1948. Her parents were both family physicians and she was one of seven children.

From the age of four, she attended the Launceston Church Grammar School until she was sixteen. She then went further and attended University High School, where she graduated with very good grades in the final statewide matriculation exams. 

In 1970, she earned a Bachelor of Science and in 1972 Master of Science from the University of Melbourne in the field of biochemistry.

At the University of Cambridge, she worked with Fredrick Sanger in 1975. As a team, they developed methods to sequence DNA using RNA. They also studied the bacteriophage. 

2. Relationships

Elizabeth met her husband at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge University. Her soon-to-be husband John Sedat had taken at Yale, and she then decided to finish her postdoctoral there.

3. Her Research

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While she finished her postdoctoral at Yale, she did research on the protozoan Tetrahymena thermophila and noticed a repeating codon at the end of the linear rDNA which varied in size.

Later, she then noticed that the hexanucleotide at the end of the chromosome contained a TTAGGG sequence that was tandemly repeated.

The terminal end of the chromosomes was palindromic. She used the telomeric repeated end of Tetrahymena, Elizabeth, and her colleague Jack showed the unstable replicating plasmids of yeast.

These were protected from degradation proving that these sequences contained characteristics of telomeres. 

Her research also proved the telomeric repeats of Tetrahymena were conserved evolutionary between species.

Through this research, Elizabeth and her colleagues noticed the replication system for chromosomes was not likely to add to the lengthening of the telomere, also the addition of these hexanucleotides to the chromosomes.

 4. Publications

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Elizabeth’s first book was The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer it was co-authored with health psychologist Dr. Elissa S. Epel in 2017.

Her book involved comments on aging reversal and care of one’s telomeres through lifestyle: managing chronic stress, eating better, exercising, and getting enough sleep. It also included telomere testing, plus caution and advice.

The book details many of the effects that poor health can have on telomeres and telomerase activity.

The idea behind it was replenishing these caps is essential to long-term cell growth. She explained that people who lead stressful lives exhibit less telomerase functioning in the body, which leads to the dividing capabilities of the cell.

Elizabeth has published over 150 papers on telomerase and telomeres due to this, she has won numerous awards.

5. Current Research

Elizabeth has been investigating the effect of stress on telomerase and telomeres with particular emphasis on mindfulness meditation.

The Blackburn Lab currently investigates the impact of limited maintenance of telomeres in cells through altering the enzyme telomerase.

6. Awards

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In 1988, she won the Eli Lilly Research Award for Microbiology and Immunology. She won the United States National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology in 1990. In the same year, she won the Harvey Society Lectures at the Harvey Society in New York.

In 1991, Elizabeth attained awards for Honorary Doctorate of Science from Yale University and the Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 1992, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in the next year, a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

In the 2000s, she got a lot more awards like the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation Alfred P. Sloan Award, the E. B. Wilson Award of the American Society for Cell Biology, and the Robert J. and Claire Pasarow Foundation Medical Research Award.

7. Magazine Articles

In 2007, she was listed among Time magazine’s 100 people who shape our world. In 2017, she was featured in The Guardian.

8. Elections Elizabeth Won

Elizabeth was elected for a number of presidential seats in the world of science and discovery. Some of them were the presidents of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies from 2016 to 2017.

Also, she was President f the American Association for Cancer Research in 2010, a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences in 1993, a Board member of the Genetics Society of America from 2000-2002, and she was a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2006. 

9. Her Personal Life

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Elizabeth splits her time living between La Jolla and San Francisco with her husband John W. Sedat and their son Benjamin.

She serves as a mentor and advocates for scientific research and policy which influences generations to come to continue the research and work that she has initiated.

10. Discovery On The Vegan Diet

Elizabeth found that a vegan diet caused more than 500 genes to change in only three months, turning on genes that prevent disease and turning off genes that cause heart disease, cancer, and other diseases.

She also proved that the change in the diet provided health benefits to the very small pilot group. However, there was a large gap between the conclusions of the paper and Dean Ornish’s statements.

All in All, Elizabeth changed the course of science with her discovery which would later be used to prove how the human body reacts to certain cells.

She is known as an explorer in the realms of health and public policy. Not only has she formed a name for herself, but she has set a record inspiring women in her line of work to aspire for the same goals. 

She is remembered as the woman who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine but this is just one of the countless awards she has won over the years.

One would think that after achieving all that she might retire, however, that is far from the case. Elizabeth is currently a faculty member in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF proving that she is far from retiring.