Who won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the functions of telomeres?
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009 jointly to Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.
Who got the Nobel Prize for Biology in 2009?
Carol Greider
October 5, 2009- Carol Greider, Ph. D., 48, one of the world’s pioneering researchers on the structure of chromosome ends known as telomeres, today was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
What was unique about Greider and Blackburn’s Nobel Prize?
Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak discovered that a unique DNA sequence in the telomeres protects the chromosomes from degradation. Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn identified telomerase, the enzyme that makes telomere DNA. If the telomeres are shortened, cells age.
Who discovered telomeres and telomerase?
Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn identified telomerase, the enzyme that makes telomere DNA. These discoveries explained how the ends of the chromosomes are protected by the telomeres and that they are built by telomerase. If the telomeres are shortened, cells age.
What is the role of telomerase?
Telomerase is a key enzyme for cell survival that prevents telomere shortening and the subsequent cellular senescence that is observed after many rounds of cell division. In contrast, inactivation of telomerase is observed in most cells of the adult liver.
What is telomerase used for?
Telomerase is the enzyme responsible for maintenance of the length of telomeres by addition of guanine-rich repetitive sequences. Telomerase activity is exhibited in gametes and stem and tumor cells.
What telomerase means?
: a DNA polymerase that is a ribonucleoprotein catalyzing the elongation of chromosomal telomeres in eukaryotic cell division and is particularly active in cancer cells.
What is the difference between telomerase and telomeres?
Telomeres function by preventing chromosomes from losing base pair sequences at their ends. Telomerase, also called telomere terminal transferase, is an enzyme made of protein and RNA subunits that elongates chromosomes by adding TTAGGG sequences to the end of existing chromosomes.
Why is too much telomerase bad?
Too much telomerase can help confer immortality onto cancer cells and actually increase the likelihood of cancer, whereas too little telomerase can also increase cancer by depleting the healthy regenerative potential of the body.
