Elizabeth Blackburn

Elizabeth Helen Blackburn was born 26 November 1948 in Australia and later became a dual Australian-American citizen. In 1984, working with Carol W. Greider, she co-discovered telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes telomeres - the protective caps on chromosomes. That discovery earned her the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Greider and Jack W. Szostak, making Blackburn the first Australian woman to win a Nobel. She later served as president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and worked in medical ethics. In a move that drew sharp pushback, she was dismissed from the Bush administration's President's Council on Bioethics; 170 scientists signed an open letter in her defense, arguing the firing was politically motivated, a response to her advice rather than her science.