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" 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. "

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" 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

" When you bring telomerase RNA levels down by using a mechanism that targets the RNA for destruction, the cells which were running on very high telomerase levels are now running on a lean diet of telomerase. "

" 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. "

" Being senior enough in the field, having enough solidity, I don't feel afraid of being marginalized. "

" When scientists get old, they get interested in the brain, and I'm a little bit afraid I'm falling into that. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

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. "

" Challenges in medicine are moving from 'Treat the symptoms after the house is on fire' to 'Can we preserve the house intact?' "

" Perhaps arising from a fascination with animals, biology seemed the most interesting of sciences to me as a child. "

Elizabeth Blackburn

Biology

Interesting

" We're collecting about 100,000 telomere lengths in saliva samples and then looking at how those relate to both the extensive longitudinal clinical records that Kaiser is collecting and the genome sequence variations. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" We think there are lifestyle factors that boost telomerase naturally. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" Basically, when you look at different types of cells, such as fibroblasts, which form connective tissue, or epithelial cells, from saliva, you see general correlations within a person. If telomeres are up for one cell type, they're up for others overall. "

" Ageing is so many different things, and cells being able to self-renew is part of the picture but not all of it. "

" Generally, we try to have a situation where the person is healthy, so you're not confounded by disease. So, that means that healthy individuals are donating their blood samples for the studies. "

" 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. "

" Medicine has been successful by treating diseases in a very specific way once the damage is done. But telomere length integrates a lot of factors together and gives you an overall picture of risk for what is now emerging as a lot of diseases that tend to occur together, such as diabetes and heart disease. "

" 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

" Biology sometimes reveals its fundamental principles through what may seem at first to be arcane and bizarre. "

" We're involved in a very large study that's federally funded and being done with Kaiser Permanente, and saliva is a very non-invasive way to get cells from the body. "

" At Cambridge, there was a completely unintimidating culture, and there were no class divisions among the students. "

" I've only actively promoted what we always hope is good science. "

" The goal is to learn more about telomere length and other markers of ageing, how best to measure these markers, how they are related to health and lifestyle, and how people respond to learning their own telomere length results. "