Elizabeth Blackburn Quotes

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.

We and other groups are seeing clear statistical links between telomere shortness and risk for a variety of diseases that are becoming very common, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain cancers.

In humans, the thing is that as we mature, our telomeres slowly wear down. So the question has always been: 'Did that matter?' Well, more and more, it seems like it matters.

Now, remember that little pond scum critter Tetrahymena? The craziest thing was, Tetrahymena cells never got old and died. Their telomeres weren't shortening as time marched on. Sometimes they even got longer. Something else was at work, and believe me, that something was not in any textbook. So working in my lab with my extraordinary student Carol Greider -- and Carol and I shared the Nobel Prize for this work -- we began running experiments and we discovered cells do have something else. It was a previously undreamed-of enzyme that could replenish, make longer, telomeres, and we named it telomerase. And when we removed our pond scum's telomerase, their telomeres ran down and they died. So it was thanks to their plentiful telomerase that our pond scum critters never got old.

Telomeres are the ends of our chromosomes that control how long we live. As telomeres become shorter, then cells age and die more quickly. In simple terms, as your telomeres get shorter, your life gets shorter.

We know that people who are born with shorter telomeres than normal also have a shorter lifespan. We know that shorter telomeres can cause a shorter lifespan.

Aging is not currently regarded as a disease, but researchers tend increasingly to view it as the common origin of conditions like insulin resistance or cardiovascular disease, whose incidence rises with age. In treating cell aging, we could prevent these diseases.

What is it that keeps you so interested in the telomere? It's so intricate and complicated, and you want to know how it works.

None of us wants to be reminded that dementia is random, relentless, and frighteningly common.

I really do believe that America has this weight problem - obesity issues - and we have all these diseases that we get - heart disease, cancer, diabetes, autoimmune diseases - that are primarily lifestyle diseases.

The conservative statement is that telomere length is a biomarker, but it's probably not passive. There are some very intimate relationships between things such as molecular markers for inflammation and telomere health.

We are paying the price for living longer, collecting degenerative diseases along the way. Cancer is only one. Others are heart and brain diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinsons.

In my lab, we're finding that psychological stress actually ages cells, which can be seen when you measure the wearing down of the tips of the chromosomes, those telomeres.

Even slight elevations in blood sugar have been shown to increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

In 1978, Elizabeth Blackburn, working with Joe Gall, identified the DNA sequence of telomeres. Every time a cell divides, it gets shorter. But telomeres usually don't. So there must be something happening to the telomeres to keep their length in equilibrium.

We had discovered something unheard of: the more chronic stress you are under, the shorter your telomeres, meaning the more likely you were to fall victim to an early disease span and perhaps untimely death. Our findings meant that people's life events and the way we respond to these events can change how you maintain your telomeres.

human genetics has taught us that when it comes to our telomerase, we humans live on a knife edge. OK, simply put, yes, nudging up telomerase does decrease the risks of some diseases, but it also increases the risks of certain and rather nasty cancers.

A short telomere represents a persistent and non-repairable damage to the cells, which is able to prevent their division or regeneration.

It will be useful for you to know your biological age and maybe to change your lifestyle habits if you find you have short telomeres.

People dramatically underestimate how much sleep is linked to all the diseases killing us. We know a lack of sleep is linked to numerous forms of cancer - bowel, prostate, breast cancer.

Biological age is the key component of the aging process.

We need to think of chronic disease, hypertension, cancer, like H1N1. In fact, there's an epidemic of chronic disease.

Alzheimer's disease starts when a protein that should be folded up properly misfolds into a kind of demented origami.

If a test showed you had telomere shortening, it would be a red flag suggesting you should take a look at possible risk factors.

Micronutrient-poor foods, like pasta, sugar, and soda, don't just give you empty calories and make you fat; they also do damage to the body and cause disease.