14 May 2010

Nobel Laureate to deliver 2010 Peter Garland Lecture

Please note the event below - due to take place tomorrow, Tues 18th - has been cancelled due to travel disruption caused by volcanic ash etc.

Dr Elizabeth Blackburn, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, will visit Dundee next week to deliver this year’s Peter Garland Lecture.

The lecture, hosted by the University of Dundee's College of Life Sciences, will take place at the University’s Dalhousie Building from 4pm on Tuesday, May 18th. Dr Blackburn will speak on 'Control of telomere maintenance and responses to its perturbation', which will include the latest updates on her Nobel Prize-winning work.

Dr Blackburn is Morris Herztein Professor of Biology and Physiology in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research into the telomere, a structure that protects the chromosome and therefore plays a role in aging and genetic damage, earned her the award.

Professor Mike Ferguson, Dean of Research, said, 'Everyone at the College is delighted to welcome Elizabeth Blackburn to Dundee to deliver the 2010 Peter Garland Lecture.

'Obviously, she is in great demand and we very much appreciate her coming to visit us. She will be talking and sharing ideas with many of our research scientists while she is here, including with some of our younger up and coming scientific stars over dinner on the Royal Research Ship Discovery.'

Telomeres are the ends of chromosomes and can be thought of as protecting them from fraying, like protective caps on the tips of shoe laces. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, lengths of carefully packaged up DNA, in every cell and, because chromosomes are mostly X shaped, each has four telomeres.

Because telomeres get shorter and shorter throughout life, they are associated with both protecting our genetic material from damage and with the process of aging. Their discovery and the mechanisms required for their maintenance are absolutely fundamental to our understanding of biology.

Dr Blackburn, together with two other scientists, co-discovered telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes the telomere, and was awarded the Nobel Prize last year in recognition of this hugely important work.

The Peter Garland Lecture is the College of Life Sciences' most prestigious lecture, and is named in honour of the first Professor of Biochemistry in Dundee. Under Professor Garland’s leadership from 1970 to 1984, the University established one of the UK’s strongest life sciences departments.

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