Elizabeth Blackburn quotes

Elizabeth Blackburn is an Australian scientist renowned for her groundbreaking work on telomeres and the enzyme telomerase. Her discoveries have greatly advanced the field of genetics and our understanding of cellular aging. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her contributions. Here are 15 of her quotes:

Generally, we try to have a situation where the person is healthy, so you're not confounded by disease. So, that means that healthy individuals are donating their blood samples for the studies. (Elizabeth Blackburn)
We and other groups are seeing clear statistical links between telomere shortness and risk for a variety of diseases that are becoming very common, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain cancers. View quote
Elizabeth Blackburn
Ageing is so many different things, and cells being able to self-renew is part of the picture but not all of it. View quote
Elizabeth Blackburn
What is it that keeps you so interested in the telomere? It's so intricate and complicated, and you want to know how it works. View quote
Elizabeth Blackburn
Researchers have found that the brain definitely sends nerves directly to organs of the immune system and not just to the heart and the lower gut. In that way, too, the brain is influencing the body. View quote
Elizabeth Blackburn
I've only actively promoted what we always hope is good science. View quote
Elizabeth Blackburn
Biology sometimes reveals its fundamental principles through what may seem at first to be arcane and bizarre. View quote
Elizabeth Blackburn
This enzyme, called telomerase, slows the rate at which telomeres degrade, and research indicates that healthy people with longer telomeres have less risk of developing the common illnesses of aging - like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, which are three big killers today. View quote
Elizabeth Blackburn
For me, arguably the story of telomeres and telomerase began thousands of years ago, in the cornfields of the Maya highlands of Central America. View quote
Elizabeth Blackburn
Medicine has been successful by treating diseases in a very specific way once the damage is done. But telomere length integrates a lot of factors together and gives you an overall picture of risk for what is now emerging as a lot of diseases that tend to occur together, such as diabetes and heart disease. View quote
Elizabeth Blackburn
In my early work, our molecular views of telomeres were first focused on the DNA. (Elizabeth Blackburn)
As maize became important for human food worldwide, modern agricultural research on maize breeding continued the corn breeding begun thousands of years ago in the Central American highlands. View quote
Elizabeth Blackburn
Telomeres are the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes in cells. Chromosomes carry the genetic information. Telomeres are buffers. They are like the tips of shoelaces. If you lose the tips, the ends start fraying. View quote
Elizabeth Blackburn
Studying organisms at a molecular level was totally compelling because it was moving from being a naturalist, which was the 19th-century kind of science, to being very focused and really getting to the heart of these molecules. View quote
Elizabeth Blackburn
We think there are lifestyle factors that boost telomerase naturally. View quote
Elizabeth Blackburn

Elizabeth Blackburn

Elizabeth Blackburn - Image
Photo: Gerbil, GFDL
Occupation: Australian Scientist
Born: November 26, 1948
Quotes count: 15