UCSF to Follow Blackburn During Nobel Week 2009

This week, UCSF molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, will be in Stockholm, Sweden, where she will become UCSF’s fourth scientist to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Blackburn shares the award with Carol Greider, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Jack Szostack, PhD, of Harvard Medical School, for their co-discovery of the enzyme telomerase, which plays a key role in cell function, cell aging and most cancers.

The trio will each present their Nobel Lecture at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm on Monday, Dec. 7, and will receive the Nobel medal at the official award ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall on Thursday, Dec. 10.

December 10 is the date of the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, a scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, author and pacifist, who set up the foundations for the prize in his last will and testament.

A Nobel banquet for the Nobel laureates will be held that evening in Stockholm City Hall.

All Nobel Lectures will be webcast live on Nobelprize.org and will be made available within 24 hours on that site as on-demand video. The Dec. 10 award ceremony will stream live on Nobelprize.org starting at 4.30 p.m. in Stockholm (7:30 a.m. PST) and also will be made available as video on demand within 24 hours.

UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH, will be accompanying Blackburn during the Nobel Prize activities.