Americans Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak were named winners of the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine yesterday for research that has implications for cancer and aging research.
The trio solved a big problem in biology: how chromosomes can be “copied in a complete way during cell divisions and how they are protected against degradation,” the citation said.
It said the laureates have shown that the solution is to be found in the ends of the chromosomes — the telomeres — and in an enzyme that forms them. Telomeres are often compared to the plastic tips at the end of shoelaces that keep those laces from unraveling.
“The discoveries by Blackburn, Greider and Szostak have added a new dimension to our understanding of the cell, shed light on disease mechanisms, and stimulated the development of potential new therapies,” the prize committee said in its citation.
It was the first time that two women have been among the winners of the medicine prize.
Blackburn, who holds US and Australian citizenship, is a professor of biology and physiology at the University of California, San Francisco. Greider is a professor in the department of molecular biology and genetics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Greider, 48, said she was telephoned just before 5am with the news that she had won.
”It’s really very thrilling, it’s something you can’t expect,” she said by telephone.
People might make predictions of who might win, but one never expects it, she said, adding that “It’s like the Monty Python sketch, ‘Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!’”
London-born Szostak has been at Harvard Medical School since 1979 and and is currently professor of genetics at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He is also affiliated with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the citation said.
The award includes a 10 million kronor (US$1.4 million) purse and an invitation to the prize ceremonies in Stockholm on Dec. 10.
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