Nobel Prize in Medicine for Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak

Nobel Prize in Medicine for Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack SzostakThe trio solved the mystery of how chromosomes, the rod-like structures that carry DNA, protect themselves from degrading when cells divide.

Biologists Elizabeth H. Blackburn from San Francisco, and Carol Greider from Baltimore were awarded the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter science prize in Frankfurt, Germany.On Monday Oct. 5, 2009 Sweden’s Karolinska institute gave the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine to Americans Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak. The institute says the trio was awarded “for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase”

“The discoveries by Blackburn, Greider and Szostak have added a new dimension to understanding of the cell, shed light on disease mechanisms, and stimulated the development of potential new therapies.”