Elizabeth Blackburn Quotes

I was a close observer of the developments in molecular biology.

You'd need a very specialized electron microscope to get down to the level to actually see a single strand of DNA.

According to physical measurements, DNA chains are, on the average, 10,000 units long.

I think genetic research is a fascinating and fertile area.

Heredity is nothing but stored environment.

But while doing that I'd been following a variety of fields in science and technology, including the work in molecular biology, genetic engineering, and so forth.

In this atmosphere I soon became interested in nucleic acids.

If we think of our chromosomes - they carry our genetic material - as being like shoelaces, I work on the plastic tips at the end that protect them.

For me, arguably the story of telomeres and telomerase began thousands of years ago, in the cornfields of the Maya highlands of Central America.

When I read about genetics, I see breakthroughs every day. And while I'm trying to learn more about behavioral science, I must say that I don't feel I get tremendous intellectual stimulation from most of the things I read.

April 25th is DNA Day. I know, you probably had no idea.

When I was 16, my dad took me to a DNA conference at the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco, California, and I was captivated by this way of looking at biology and by the discussions of bits of nucleic acid that could make us sick.

There are as many atoms in one molecule of DNA as there are stars in a typical galaxy.

Genes are biochemical recipes written in a four-letter alphabet called DNA.

The greatest single achievement of nature to date was surely the invention of the molecule DNA.

DNA is an abbreviation for deoxyribonucleicantidisestablishmentarianism, a complex string of syllables.

We have come a long way on that old molecule DNA.

Genetics is about how information is stored and transmitted between generations.

Genetic theories, I gather, have been cherished academically with detachment.

But honestly, if you do a rigorous survey of my work, I'll bet you'll find that biology is a theme far more often than physical science.

The egg of every species of animal or plant carries a definite number of bodies called chromosomes. The sperm carries the same number. Consequently, when the sperm unites with the egg, the fertilized egg will contain the double number of chromosomes.

This enzyme, called telomerase, slows the rate at which telomeres degrade, and research indicates that healthy people with longer telomeres have less risk of developing the common illnesses of aging - like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, which are three big killers today.

The origin of each of us stems from codes of genetic inheritance.

What I found out on Christmas Day 1984, through biochemical evidence, was that telomeres could be lengthened by the enzyme we called telomerase, which keeps the telomeres from wearing down. After I found that out, I went home and put on Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the USA,' which was just out, and I danced and danced and danced.

I've always been a serious computer nerd, as well as a biologist.