Events

AIC Gold Medal

Elizabeth Blackburn. (Credit: Elisabeth Fall.)

2012 Medalist: Elizabeth H. Blackburn

Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Morris Herzstein Professor of Biology and Physiology in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), received the 2012 AIC Gold Medal at Heritage Day on April 12, 2012.

Blackburn is a leader in the area of telomere and telomerase research. She discovered the molecular nature of telomeres—the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes that serve as protective caps essential for preserving the genetic information—and the ribonucleoprotein enzyme telomerase. Blackburn and her research team at UCSF are working with various cells, including human cells, with the goal of understanding telomerase and telomere biology.

Blackburn earned B.Sc. (1970) and M.Sc. (1972) degrees from the University of Melbourne, and a Ph.D. (1975) from the University of Cambridge. She did her postdoctoral work in molecular and cellular biology at Yale University.

In 1978 Blackburn joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Department of Molecular Biology. In 1990 she joined the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at UCSF, where she served as department chair from 1993 to 1999. She is also a nonresident fellow of the Salk Institute.

Throughout her career Blackburn has been honored by her peers as the recipient of many prestigious awards. She was elected president of the American Society for Cell Biology for 1998. Blackburn is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1991), the Royal Society of London (1992), the American Academy of Microbiology (1993), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2000).

In 1993 she was elected foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences and in 2000 as a member of the Institute of Medicine. She was awarded the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award in Basic Medical Research (2006). In 2007 she was named one of Time’s “100 Most Influential People,” and she is the 2008 North American laureate of the L’Oreal−UNESCO Award for Women in Science.

In 2009 Blackburn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

About the AIC Gold Medal

First awarded by the American Institute of Chemists (AIC) in 1926, and jointly awarded with CHF since 2003, the Gold Medal is the AIC’s highest award. It recognizes service to the science of chemistry and to the profession of chemist or chemical engineer in the United States. Previous winners include Nobel laureates as well as other renowned researchers and engineers representing many facets of the world of chemistry. Medalists include Alfred Bader, Arnold O. Beckman, Paul Berg, Herbert C. Brown, F. Albert Cotton, Carl Djerassi, Walter Gilbert, Harry B. Gray, Ralph F. Hirschmann, Roald Hoffmann, Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Glenn T. Seaborg, Oliver Smithies, Max Tishler, and George M. Whitesides.