Telomeres are repetitive stretches of DNA at the ends of chromosomes that protect the essential genes inside from being lost during replication, since some material at the chromosome ends is naturally trimmed off each time DNA copies itself. Elizabeth Blackburn, Jack Szostak, and Carol Greider discovered telomeres in 1984 and also identified the enzyme telomerase, which maintains and rebuilds these protective ends. Telomere shortening is tied to aging and to cancer, and the discovery earned the trio the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
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The hosts compare telomeres to blank margins on a notebook page, material that can be sacrificed at the edges so the actual content stays intact.
204 words · auto-generated from the episode video
1:18:061984 discovery of telomeres and uh timmerase. >> Yes. Um Elizabeth Blackburn, Jack Sak, and Carol Grder, they discovered that at the end of chromosomes are these things called telomeirs. And it's effectively repetitive repetitive bits of DNA that scaffold and protect the actual important stuff that's on the inside. The important genes that are on the inside are protected by these tails because when you you know when you replicate you're going to you're going to just because of temperature and energy and things like that, you're going to leave off the stuff in the ends. So if I just have like bookends at the ends that don't matter, then I can
1:18:46protect the stuff on the inside. Turns out this stuff is related to aging because as the telomeres get shorter, aging gets worse and worse. Cancer gets worse and worse. Um, they also discovered the enzyme tomeorase at the University of California, Berkeley. Um, and it solved how does >> how does the body maintain the telomeirs? Well, the enzyme tomeorase does that. They won the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine. >> Uh, margins on paper notebook. >> Yeah, that's exactly right. as as an analogy. We're moving to 1985 laser