-
American Scientists win the Nobel Prize in Medicine (Genetics)
- Oct 5, 2009 at 8:43 AM
- By
- Comments (6) Total Views (240) Everyone can see this journal post.
HOT NEWS today!! The Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine went to three American Scientists this week: Carol Greider (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine), Elizabeth Blackburn (University of California at San Francisco), and John Szostak (Massachusettes General Hospital). notice two of the winners are women scientists, which should further inspire women to pursue careers in science!
They won for their contributions to understanding how chromosomes are protected at the ends by a structure called the telomere and how this is affected by an enzyme telomerase. This structure has very important connections to aging, chromosomal damage, and cancer.
You can read more in a news article on Scientific American online, the official release at Nobel Prize online. Read more about the Nobel Prize in general in my recent post. Continue on for a quick lesson on the importance of teleomeres. This is an exciting continuation of my series on DNA, so if you haven't read the introductory posts, such as How DNA Does its Thing, you might get so interested you go back and read it, and others).
Normal Cells
Basically, due to a fluke in the DNA replication process, our chromosomes get a tiny bit shorter everytime they are duplicated. The shortening occurs at the ends. if there were important genes down there, losing little bits of them over time could be a catastrophe! Luckily, the chromosome ends are actually made up of long repeats of TTAGGG. These long repeats are called telomeres. They could be considered "junk DNA', since they do not encode any important protein, but they actually have a very important function. The telomeres get a little bit shorter during each chromosomal duplication, which essentially protects the good DNA from losing any parts!!
Aging Cells
Eventually the cells will have lost all their telomeric DNA, and the telomeres are no longer there. Additional chromosomal duplications result is the loss of good DNA. It is thought that this process contributes to aging, as DNA damage accumulates in older cells, which eventually leads to the cell death.
Cancer Cells
One very interesting trait of cancer cells is the fact that they can maintain their telomere length by the activation of an enzyme called telomerase. Telomerase in cancer cells adds the TTAGGG repeats back onto the chromosome ends as fast as (or faster than) the cell division shortens them. This action is what manitains the infinite lifespan of cancer cells, and many therapies are being investigated that turn off this function, which would allow cancer cells to incur normal DNA damage that leads to cell death.
Due to the work of these incredible scientists, we have a wonderful understanding of how telemores protect DNA, contribute to DNA damage, and how telomerase contributes to cancer. Without a doubt, these scientists deserve this prize! This is very exciting news. I would much rather have heard about this on the Today Show, instead of having to suffer through Kate's appeal for the money John allegedly took from their bank account. We need news channels that can excite and stimulate women, girls, boys and men in science by making this information public. Really who cares about John and Kate?
Tonya
AKA sunmoonstars
Comments:
Wow, cancer cells are sneaky little things! This is really interesting. Very neat that one woman is from JHU as well!
adding the CNN story link:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/10/05/nobel.medicine/index.html
Yay for women in science!
Hooray!
Already a member? Click here to log in
My husband read about this subject to me on Saturday morning. Its really facinating.
- MSugarKane
Message Friend Invite