Americans Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak won the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells, which may aid in better understanding cancer. Blackburn and Greider's victory is the first time two women have been among the winners of the medicine prize. The three unlocked the mystery of how chromosomes protect themselves from degrading when cells divide. Their work, done in the late 1970s and 1980s, set the stage for research suggesting that cancer cells use telomerase to sustain their uncontrolled growth. Scientists are studying whether drugs that block the enzyme can fight the disease. In addition, scientists believe that the DNA erosion the enzyme repairs might play a role in some illnesses. “The discoveries by Blackburn, Greider and Szostak have added a new dimension to our understanding of the cell, shed light on disease mechanisms, and stimulated the development of potential new therapies,” the prize committee said in its citation. Blackburn, who holds U.S. and Australian citizenship, is a professor of biology and physiology at the University of California, San Francisco. Greider is a professor in the department of molecular biology and genetics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. London-born Szostak, has been at Harvard Medical School since 1979 and is currently professor of genetics. He is also affiliated with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
