Dr Elizabeth Blackburn

Credit: Peter Gruber Foundation

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SYDNEY: Australia's Elizabeth Blackburn has been awarded the 2006 Genetics Prize for her discovery of an enzyme crucial to the process of DNA replication.

"Elizabeth Blackburn has transformed our understanding of how cells age and die," said Peter Gruber, chairman of the award-giving society, 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."

In the 1970s, Blackburn, a professor in the department of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California at San Francisco, showed how DNA replicated safely without losing valuable information. Each chromosome has a telomere, a cap of DNA that protects its ends from damage.

Blackburn and her team then went on to discover telomerase, the enzyme responsible for maintaining and repairing telomeres. They also demonstrated the roles the enzyme plays in normal cells, cancer cells and ageing.

While telomerase is integral to keeping cells alive, it can also be the recipe for disaster when it comes to cancer cells, which have an excess of the enzyme, making them immortal. "However, knocking down the high telomerase in cancer cells also inhibited their growth surprisingly rapidly," said Blackburn, who presented her results during the Gruber lecture at the American Society for Human Genetics meeting earlier today.

In addition to her discoveries, Blackburn has been a strong advocate of keeping science separate from the influence of politics, according to Gruber. "Not only has Dr Blackburn opened up a vast field of research, but she has also fought against the politicisation of science."

Blackburn was appointed to U.S. President George W. Bush's Council on Bioethics in 2001 – only to be dismissed in 2004 over her insistence that only the best science be included in council reports, according to Gruber. She had previously criticised the consideration of religious and political factors when advising on science.

Shortly after her dismissal, Blackburn stated, "As a naturalised 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 Genetics Prize "honours ground-breaking contributions in genomic organisation, function, regulation, variation or transmission," according to the Peter Gruber Foundation.