telomere

The tweet came just about an hour ago announcing the well-deserved and much-predicted award of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider, and Jack Szostak for their work on "how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase." I wrote about this team and their accomplishments three years ago when the won the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, considered the "American Nobel." I said then: Most cancer researchers, biochemists, and cell biologists know all three of these outstanding researchers. While I can't claim being…