Elizabeth Blackburn receives the 2006 Gruber Genetics Prize

The secret of aging?

Embargo/presentation 15.30 EST, 10 October 2006, American Society for Human Genetics Meeting, New Orleans Convention Center, Hall F

“Elizabeth Blackburn has transformed our understanding of how cells age and die,” says Peter Gruber, Chairman of the Peter Gruber Foundation. “And she has acted as a true citizen scientist, working to ensure that public debate on the impact of science on society is well informed and grounded in fact.”

Elizabeth H. Blackburn is the Morris Herzstein Professor of Biology and Physiology in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. She will receive a gold medal and a US$250,000 cash prize.

In the 1970s, Blackburn showed how, as our cells divide and grow, our DNA is safely copied and protected. Each chromosome is capped with a telomere – a small DNA cap that protects the ends from damage. She and her colleagues then went on to discover telomerase, the enzyme that repairs the telomeres, and demonstrated the role it plays in normal cells, cancer cells and aging.

They found that telomerase ‘keeps DNA young’. Those cells without telomerase will eventually die.

“Although telomerase activity is normally kept in check in adult human cells, throughout life a certain level of telomerase is still required for replenishment of tissues, such as the immune system,” says Blackburn.

Recently she and her University of California, San Francisco colleagues, including Dr. Elissa Epel, showed that low telomerase in white blood cells was associated with six of the known major risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

But it’s not always good for a cell to stay young. Many cancer cells are overly rich in telomerase. “Knocking down the high telomerase in cancer cells also inhibited their growth surprisingly rapidly,” says Blackburn who will present these and other recent results during the Gruber lecture at the American Society for Human Genetics meeting.

“Not only has Dr. Blackburn opened up a vast field of research,” says Peter Gruber. “She has also fought against the politicization of science.” In 2001 Blackburn was appointed to President Bush's Council on Bioethics only to be dismissed in 2004 over her insistence that the council’s reports should incorporate the best possible scientific information.

Shortly after her dismissal, Blackburn said, “As a naturalized citizen of the United States, I have an immigrant’s love for our country. But our country must not fail us. Scientific advice should and must be protected from the influence of politics.” Blackburn, still also an Australian citizen, was born in Tasmania, Australia.

The Peter Gruber Foundation was founded in 1993 and established the first of its international prizes in 2000. The Foundation now supports five international awards: Cosmology; Genetics, Neuroscience; Justice and Women’s Rights.

The Cosmology Prize was presented in August to NASA’s John Mather. Last week it was announced that he will share the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics. The 2006 Justice Prize was awarded to Aharon Barak, recently retired President of the Supreme Court of Israel.

Full media release, background information and photos at www.scienceinpublic.com or contact Niall Byrne: niall@scienceinpublic.com, +1 314 448 9909 – US cell, +61 417 131 977 – Australian cell.

The Peter Gruber Foundation gives international prizes in genetics, neuroscience, cosmology, justice, and women’s rights. Its goal is to recognize, honor, and encourage individuals who have transformed their fields, and by shining a spotlight on them, encourage others to follow in their footsteps.

The Genetics Prize honors ground-breaking contributions in genomic organization, function, regulation, variation or transmission.

"The 2006 Genetics Prize of the Peter Gruber Foundation is hereby proudly presented to Elizabeth H. Blackburn, PhD for telomeres and telomerase.

By discovering the unique structure and mechanism of replication of telomeres, the ends of chromosomes, Dr. Blackburn demonstrated that these genetic elements play a fundamental role in normal development, and in carcinogenesis.

She characterized telomerase, the enzyme responsible for making telomeres, in normally aging cells, in cancer cells, and in stem cells, enabling the development of new drugs based on these biological roles.

Her accuracy and honesty in debates on therapeutic cloning and stem cell research have raised public awareness of the importance of this work and are a model for the role of the scientist as citizen."

Following the award presentation, Dr. Blackburn will give the Gruber Lecture on responses of cells and organisms to altered telomere maintenance.

"Telomeres are the structures that protect and stabilize the ends of chromosomes, ensuring genomic stability. Telomeres consist of simple DNA sequences, which bind protein factors and make a “cap”. Without telomeric DNA and its special way of replicating, chromosome ends dwindle away, eventually causing cells to stop dividing, a process called cellular senescence. The enzyme telomerase replenishes the DNA at telomeres, partly counteracting the progressive shortening of telomeres throughout the human life span. Although telomerase activity is normally kept in check in adult human cells, throughout life a certain level of telomerase is still required for replenishment of tissues, such as the immune system. Recent findings have highlighted the importance of telomerase and telomere length maintenance. For example, low telomerase in white blood cells in young to middle aged humans was found to be associated with six of the known major risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

In contrast to many normal cells in human adults, late-stage cancer cells characteristically have very high telomerase levels. A major known function of telomerase in cancer is to replenish telomeric DNA and maintain cell immortality. However, knocking down the high telomerase in cancer cells also inhibited their growth surprisingly rapidly, even without telomere shortening. Rapid and distinct cellular and transcriptional responses were elicited by reducing the level of telomerase RNA component. The distinctive alterations in the gene-expression profiles were predicted to be associated with diminished cancer progression. These and other recent results indicate that telomerase likely plays roles in other aspects of cancer known to be central to cancer progression."

The Genetics Advisory Board, an international panel of experts, chose Elizabeth Blackburn as the recipient of the 2006 Prize. Its members are:

Dr. Blackburn earned her B.Sc. (1970) and M.Sc. (1972) degrees from the University of Melbourne in Australia, and her Ph.D. (1975) from the University of Cambridge in England. She did her postdoctoral work in Molecular and Cellular Biology from 1975 to 1977 at Yale.

In 1978, Dr. Blackburn joined the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley in the Department of Molecular Biology. In 1990, she joined the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at UC San Francisco, where she served as Department Chair from 1993 to 1999. Dr. Blackburn is currently a faculty member in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF. She is also a Non-Resident Fellow of the Salk Institute.

Throughout her career, Dr. Blackburn has been honored by her peers as the recipient of many prestigious awards. These include the Eli Lilly Research Award for Microbiology and Immunology (1988), the National Academy of Science Award in Molecular Biology (1990), and an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Yale University (1991). She was a Harvey Society Lecturer at the Harvey Society in New York (1990), and the recipient of the UCSF Women's Faculty Association Award (1995). Most recently, she was awarded the Australia Prize (1998), the Harvey Prize (1999), the Keio Prize (1999), American Association for Cancer Research-G.H.A. Clowes Memorial Award (2000), American Cancer Society Medal of Honor (2000), AACR-Pezcoller Foundation International Award for Cancer Research (2001), General Motors Cancer Research Foundation Alfred P. Sloan Award (2001), E.B.Wil -son Award of the American Society for Cell Biology (2001), 26th Annual Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cancer Research (2003), and the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine (2004).

She was named California Scientist of the Year in 1999, elected President of the American Society for Cell Biology for the year 1998, and served as a Board member of the Genetics Society of America (2000-2002). Dr. Blackburn is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1991), the Royal Society of London (1992), the American Academy of Microbiology (1993), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2000). She was elected Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences in 1993, and was elected as a Member of the Institute of Medicine in 2000.

These quotes were collected by the Australian Science Media Centre (AusSMC) www.aussmc.org.

The Peter Gruber Foundation prizes - each with a $250,000 cash award – will be presented as follows:

The secret of aging?

Curriculum vitae