Elizabeth Helen Blackburn FRS, born November 26, 1948, in Hobart,
Tasmania, is an Australian-American biological researcher at the
University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), who studies the
telomere, a structure at the end of chromosomes that protects the
chromosome. Blackburn co-discovered telomerase, the enzyme that
replenishes the telomere.

For this work, she was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine, sharing it with Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak. She also
worked in medical ethics, and was controversially fired from the
President's Council on Bioethics.

Blackburn was appointed a member of the President George W. Bush's
Council on Bioethics in 2001. She supported human embryonic cell
research, in opposition to the Bush Administration. Her Council terms
were terminated by White House directive on February 27, 2004. This was
followed by expressions of outrage over her removal by many scientists,
who maintained that she was fired because of political opposition to her
advice.

"There is a growing sense that scientific research -- which, after all,
is defined by the quest for truth -- is being manipulated for political
ends," wrote Blackburn. "There is evidence that such manipulation is
being achieved through the stacking of the membership of advisory bodies
and through the delay and misrepresentation of their reports."

Blackburn serves on the Science Advisory Board of the Genetics Policy
Institute.


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Thankfully, the D'oh Presidency is over.