Imagine that this scientist kept a to-do list: On it would be a cure for cancer and, further down, understanding the diseases associated with aging. Elizabeth Blackburn is the 59-year-old Tasmanian-born scientist responsible for launching one of the hottest fields in the life sciences, the study of telomeres. These tiny strips of DNA cap the ends of chromosomes, and her research promises to yield potent therapeutics for many of the scourges that plague humanity.
The Cambridge-educated biochemist’s work has been honored with just about every major award in science—the Lasker, the Gruber, and the Gairdner prizes—and she recently made the list of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people. Telomeres drew her attention because of their crucial role in preventing the tips of chromosomes from fraying when a cell divides. Usually, when a cell makes a copy of itself, the telomeres shorten, which may explain why cells age and die. In the mid-1980s, Blackburn and her graduate student, Carol Greider, discovered telomerase, an enzyme she has likened to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Sometimes telomerase is a good guy because it helps produce immune cells and stops telomeres from shortening, but it can also make cells immortal, which prompts them to turn malignant. Because of the enzyme’s properties, it may eventually be the basis for therapies to combat cancer, heart disease, and diabetes—perhaps even halt the ravages of age.
Despite her accolades, Blackburn is warm and accessible, with traces of the shy science nerd who would serenade creatures as a child. In her comfortably cluttered office at the University of California at San Francisco, she talked with DISCOVER about how she became beguiled by bits of DNA.
You grew up in Launceston, a small city on the island of Tasmania. Did you feel cut off from the world?
It felt very remote, but Melbourne was an hour’s flight away, and I felt there was a big world out there.
