What did Dr Blackburn discover about stress and telomeres?

In sequencing their DNA, Blackburn discovered that telomeres are composed of six short repeating segments of DNA. Telomeres protect the ends of chromosomes – Blackburn has likened them to caps on the ends of shoelaces – as cells divide, ensuring that all the important DNA instructions get copied.

What is the relationship between telomeres telomerase and cancer?

Telomerase activity is closely related to the life stages of the body. The enzyme is active during embryonic development. Cancer cells are characterized by high telomerase activity, which enables cells to divide indefinitely. Telomerase is active in 85–95% of cancers (3,4).

Can telomerase prevent cancer?

“The DNA in telomeres shortens when cells divide, eventually halting cell division when the telomere reserve is depleted.” New results from de Lange’s lab provide the first evidence that telomere shortening helps prevent cancer in humans, likely because of its power to curtail cell division.

Why is Elizabeth Blackburn famous?

A molecular biologist born in Hobart, Australia, Blackburn is best known for her 2009 Nobel Prize–winning discovery of telomeres, caps on the ends of chromosomes that protect genetic information from damage and are thought to play an important role in aging and cancer.

What role do telomeres play in cancer?

So telomeres allow cells to divide without losing genes. Cell division is necessary for growing new skin, blood, bone, and other cells. Without telomeres, chromosome ends could fuse together and corrupt the cell’s genetic blueprint, possibly causing malfunction, cancer, or cell death.

Does telomerase increase risk of cancer?

A Danish study of more than 95,000 individuals found that long telomere–associated SNPs identified in GWAS were also associated with increased risk of cancers, especially melanoma and glioma (84).

What is the role of telomerase in cancer cells?

Telomerase is a cellular reverse transcriptase that helps to provide genomic stability in highly proliferative normal, immortal, and tumor cells by maintaining the integrity of the chromosome ends, the telomeres. The activity of telomerase is associated with the majority of malignant human cancers.

Is Elizabeth Blackburn married?

Personal life. Blackburn splits her time living between La Jolla and San Francisco with her husband, scientist John W. Sedat, whom she met while at Cambridge, and has a son, Benjamin.

How does telomere length affect cancer?

At the population level, the high incidence of cancer has prompted that shortening of telomeres promotes tumor development and several studies have found that patients with shorter telomeres in peripheral blood cells have a higher risk of developing carcinomas75.