Elizabeth Blackburn

She married John W. Sedat, and the couple has a son named Benjamin. She currently lives in San Francisco.

Elizabeth Helen Blackburn was born on November 26, 1948 in Hobart, Tasmania. She was the second of the seven children born to the couple. Both her parents were employed as physicians

When she was barely four years old, the family shifted to Launceston. It was there that she attended the Broadland House Church of England Girls’ Grammar School.

When she was sixteen, her family relocated to Melbourne where she enrolled at the University High School. It was during her time at the university high school that her interest in science was fuelled.

Matriculating with high marks, she enrolled at the University of Melbourne from where she earned a Bachelor degree in Science in 1970 and Master degree in Science in 1972.

Later moving over to England, she gained admission at the Darwin College at the University of Cambridge. In 1975, she gained her PhD degree.

In 1978, she joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Microbiology. Therein, she continued with her research on telomeres.

While at the University of California, she through her research came to know about the existence of a unique enzyme that controlled the duplication of telomere, continuously rebuilding the ends of chromosomes to protect them in the cells of young organisms, and allowing them to decay in older ones. However, the theory could not be proved and thus was rebuffed by scientists.

Meanwhile, Carol Greider, a science enthusiast, had completed her graduation with a major in biology. It was during an interview with Blackburn that she became interested in telomeres so much so that she decided to conduct her graduate research on telomeres, in Blackburn’s laboratory.

Together the two worked on finding out more about telomere’s regulating enzyme. They tried one method after the other, trying to observe the proteins found in telomeres, with an aim to discover if any of those performed the enzymatic activity that they were keen on discovering.

After failed attempts and unsuccessful trysts, they de-routed from their method and tried using oligonucleotides of DNA produced in a chemical synthesizer, rather than bacteria. To their surprise, the endless wait seemed to have paid off as an unfamiliar protein was finally detected in telomere. What’s more, it performed an enzymatic action as assumed and predicted.

In 1990, she was bestowed with the National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology.

The American Cancer Society conferred her with a Medal of Honor in 2000.

Other significant awards won by her include Australia Prize, Harvey Prize, Gairdner Foundation International Award, EB Wilson Award, Benjamin Franklin Medal, Keio Medical Science Prize, Dr A.H. Heineken Prize, Genetics Prize, Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences, L'Or�al-UNESCO Award for Women in Science, Mike Hogg Award

In 2006, along with Carol W. Greider and Jack Szostak, she was presented with America’s top medical honor, the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research

The TIME Magazine listed her in the 2007’s The TIME 100 list of The People who Shaped out World.