First Aussie woman wins Nobel Prize
Today, Elizabeth Blackburn shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine with fellow scientists Carol Greider and Jack Szostak to become the first Australian women to win one of the prestigious awards.
She won the Prize for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase — in laymen’s terms, how cells age. The discovery has huge implications for cancer research.
This is the first of the Nobel Prizes for 2009 to be announced and you can read all about it and follow the announcement of subsequent awards for this year on the Nobel Prize Web site. There you can also read about the history of the prize and browse past winners.
Gail Lipscombe has worked for some of Australia's hottest tech magazines for over 10 years. In her blog, she focuses on demystifying technology, gadgets and the web for average consumers.