Telomeres, telomerase, and cellular aging — Blackburn, Greider, Szostak
~1993 AD · Transmission: Global
BiologyDiscoveryNorth American
Blackburn, Greider, and Szostak describe telomeres as protective chromosome structures and telomerase as the enzyme that maintains them. Telomeres are the "molecular clocks" of cellular aging. Direct link to cancer and aging.
InstitutionUCSF / Johns Hopkins / Harvard Medical School
Historical regionUnited States
Primary sourceGreider, C.W. & Blackburn, E.H. — "Identification of a specific telomere terminal transferase activity in Tetrahymena extracts" (Cell, 1985)
Secondary sourceNobel Prize — Physiology or Medicine 2009