biochemistry

UCSF's Elizabeth Blackburn receives Lasker Award

Posted Wednesday, September 20, 2006 3:02:18 AM by Blog57 Team

Elizabeth H. Blackburn, PhD, 57, Morris Herzstein Professor of Biology and Physiology in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), has been named to receive the 2006 Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. Blackburn shares the award with Carol W. Greider, 45, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Jack W. Szostak, 53, of Harvard Medical School. The scientists were honored for their prediction and discovery of the telomerase enzyme, which synthesizes telomeres, the tiny units of DNA that seal off the ends of chromosomes, protecting them and maintaining the integrity of the genes contained within them. Both telomeres and telomerase play a key role in cell aging and human cancer. The research has laid the foundation for a whole field of inquiry into the possibility that the telomerase enzyme could be manipulated to treat cancer and such age-related diseases as cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative diseases....

Better Commentary on Mitochondria, Evolution and Longevity

Posted Thursday, August 10, 2006 1:01:36 AM by Blog57 Team

I briefly noted a recent paper on evolution, mitochondrial biochemistry and longevity at the Longevity Meme a little while ago. I suggested, rather tersely, the possibility that longevity was not in fact directly selected, but rather was a pleasant side effect of other evolutionary pressures on mammalian biochemistry. The commentary at Ouroboros is of a much higher quality, needless to say: The point toward which I am laboring is this: If we are to use correlative studies as a guide to instruct future mechanistic studies, it's best to know which variables are the strongest correlates of one another, and which are merely piggybacking. In this case, since maximum lifespan is concealed from selection in the wild, one might lean toward a model in which mitochondrial proteins co-evolved with the metabolic demands of body size, with lifespan changes as a spandrel - in contrast to the author's model, in which lifespan is the driving force of mitochondrial evolution....