Damon Runyon identifies today’s most brilliant early career scientists and funds their innovative cancer research.
- Today’s Promising Areas of Cancer Research
- What is Cancer?
- A Broken Pipeline?
A Generation of Science at Risk
- ARISE Report
Early Career Scientists and High-Risk, High Reward Research - American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Why We’re Losing the War on Cancer (And How To Win It)
Clifton Leaf - Fortune Magazine
October 5, 2009 > Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009
Elizabeth H. Blackburn, PhD (Innovation Award Committee Member and Former Sponsor) of the University of California, San Francisco, and Jack W. Szostak, PhD (Former Damon Runyon Sponsor) of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, were awarded the 2009 The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of “how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.”
They share the award with Carol W. Greider, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore. The long DNA structures that carry our genes are packed into chromosomes, and telomeres are the caps on their ends. Drs. Blackburn and Szostak discovered that a unique DNA sequence in the telomeres protects the chromosomes from degradation. Drs. Greider and Blackburn identified telomerase, the enzyme that makes telomere DNA. These findings explained how the ends of the chromosomes are protected by the telomeres and that they are made by telomerase.
If the telomeres are shortened, cells age. Conversely, if telomerase activity is high, telomere length is maintained, and cellular senescence is delayed such as in cancer cells, which can be considered to have eternal life. Certain other inherited diseases are characterized by a defective telomerase, resulting in damaged cells. This award recognizes the discovery of a fundamental mechanism in the cell, which stimulated the development of new therapeutic strategies.
Click here for the press release.