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©Elisabeth Fall

ELIZABETH BLACKBURN has become the first Australian woman to win the coveted Nobel Prize award. The Australian science community is celebrating along with the recipient. There have been 10 previous Australian recipients - 9 for Science and Medicine plus 1 for Literature – Patrick White.

Professor Blackburn, whose research is conducted at the University of California San Francisco,  shares the award with Carol W. Greider, from John Hopkins University and Jack W. Szostak from Harvard Medical School. The award in the field of physiology or medicine was given for the discovery of telomerase, an enzyme that plays a key role in normal cell function, as well as in cell aging and most cancers. The research leading to this award has been carried out over a period of more than 25 years when Professor Blackburn first made the discovery.

Elizabeth Blackburn was born in Hobart and studied at Melbourne University High School. An inquiring mind, mentored by her chemistry teacher and inspired by reading the life of Marie Curie, Professor Blackburn has shown the Science Lab can indeed be a “woman’s place”.

Find out more from the following links and News articles:

• The TIME 100
• Australia Prize 1998
• Wikipedia Article
• Science of Aging Timeline
• Women@Google
• Press Conference

The announcement of the award was made by video from the Nobel Institute

Related Links:

• The Prime Minister’s Prize for Science
• Women in Science [Wikipedia]
• WA’s Chief Scientist – Professor Lyn Beazley

The Nuffield Curriculum Centre has recently added two useful websites for Science teachers to use in the classroom.

The Practical Biology website allows teachers to download a wide range of experiments to illustrate concepts and processes that should work in any school laboratory.

Practical Physics also experiments for teachers to use in the Physics Laboratory. There are also videos of different experiments online.

The aim of the centre is to explore new approaches to teaching and learning by developing, managing and supporting curriculum projects.  Main areas of interest include Science, Mathematics, Design and Technology and Citizenship and exploring the creative use of ICT to support teaching and learning in these fields.