Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, along with two colleagues, received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for discovering the molecular nature of telomeres, which serve as the protective ends of chromosomes, and for discovering the enzyme telomerase, which performs the function of telomeres Maintenance. She is currently President of the Salk Institute and Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco.

She was previously President of the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Society for Cell Biology and has received almost every major medical award. Time Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in history. She is a member of the American National Academy of Sciences and Medicine and the Royal Society of London. She is involved in shaping science policy and was a member of the US President’s Advisory Committee on Bioethics.

She was born in Tasmania, Australia. She received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Melbourne, a PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Cambridge and postgraduate studies from Yale University.