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" Being senior enough in the field, having enough solidity, I don't feel afraid of being marginalized. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Feel
Afraid
Enough
Related Quotes:
" Ageing is so many different things, and cells being able to self-renew is part of the picture but not all of it. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Different
Picture
Being
" In 2004, results from a study that I worked on with colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, linked chronic stress to shortening of telomeres. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Colleagues
California
Results
" For me, arguably the story of telomeres and telomerase began thousands of years ago, in the cornfields of the Maya highlands of Central America. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Years
Story
Me
" I spent my first 4 years living in the tiny town of Snug, by the sea near Hobart. Curious about animals, I would pick up ants in our backyard and jellyfish on the beach. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Curious
Animals
Living
" Observational studies show that exercise, nutritional supplements and reducing psychological stress can help. Chronic high stress and smoking can lead to accelerated telomere shortening. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
High
Help
Exercise
" Tracing the beginnings of the interwoven stories of science can be arbitrary, as beginnings are so often lost in the mists of time. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Beginnings
Lost
Time
" 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. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
People
Aging
Today
" Challenges in medicine are moving from 'Treat the symptoms after the house is on fire' to 'Can we preserve the house intact?' "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Moving
Fire
House
" In the 1970s, I did a Ph.D. with Fred Sanger in Cambridge who was in the process of inventing ways to map what's inside DNA. He later won the Nobel Prize. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Process
Nobel Prize
Map
" Studying organisms at a molecular level was totally compelling because it was moving from being a naturalist, which was the 19th-century kind of science, to being very focused and really getting to the heart of these molecules. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Studying
Science
Moving
" 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. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Down
Always
Mature
" In my early work, our molecular views of telomeres were first focused on the DNA. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
DNA
Early
First
" Checking your telomere length is a bit like weighing yourself: you get this single number which depends on a lot of factors. Telomere length gives a sense of your underlying health. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Get
Like
Health
" I've only actively promoted what we always hope is good science. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Good
Always
Hope
" Researchers have found that the brain definitely sends nerves directly to organs of the immune system and not just to the heart and the lower gut. In that way, too, the brain is influencing the body. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Gut
Way
Brain
" I'm pretty good about getting some exercise every day - well, most days. The secret for me was to put the elliptical in front of the TV. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Day
Me
Exercise
" I chose biochemistry as my major and graduated after 4 years with an Honours degree in Biochemistry. During that time, I had come to love biochemistry research, although I was just getting my feet wet in laboratory research. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Years
Research
Feet
" I was using very unconventional methods to sequence the telemetric DNA, originally. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Unconventional
DNA
Methods
" I was born in the small city of Hobart in Tasmania, Australia, in 1948. My parents were family physicians. My grandfather and great grandfather on my mother's side were geologists. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
City
Mother
Parents
" Exercise mitigates the effects of stress - and stress, we know, shortens telomeres. In fact, early studies indicate that stress reduction techniques like meditation help people maintain the length of their telomeres. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Stress
Exercise
Help
" 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. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Think
Plastic
Work
" Telomeres are the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes in cells. Chromosomes carry the genetic information. Telomeres are buffers. They are like the tips of shoelaces. If you lose the tips, the ends start fraying. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Lose
You
Cells
" At Cambridge, there was a completely unintimidating culture, and there were no class divisions among the students. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Culture
Cambridge
Students
" I decided I wanted to go to Cambridge, and then I got introduced to Fred Sanger. I was very conscientious, and I asked him when I first got there if I should start reading up on things. But he said, 'No, I think you can just start these experiments,' so I plunged right in. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Said
Reading
Right
" Perhaps arising from a fascination with animals, biology seemed the most interesting of sciences to me as a child. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Me
Biology
Interesting
" Biology sometimes reveals its fundamental principles through what may seem at first to be arcane and bizarre. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Biology
Through
Sometimes
" The most dangerous cancer cells are actually the ones that are more like stem cells, which have this ability to produce themselves over and over again. More and more cancer biologists say stem-cell-like cells in cancers are the most dangerous. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Cancer
Cells
Dangerous
" Cancer cells have a lot of other things that are really wrong with them, and we should never forget that these are cells that have become deaf to all the signals that the body sends out, such as you can multiply a certain amount, you can be in a certain place in the body, where to stay, where to move, and so on. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Deaf
Never Forget
Place
" 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. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
You
Want
Know
" No one ever said, 'Be a doctor.' But because so many members of my extended family - aunts, uncles - were doctors, there was this expectation that I'd probably be a physician. "
Elizabeth Blackburn
Because
Doctor
Family