Nobel Prize winner Blackburn seen as a warm, special lady

Elizabeth H. Blackburn, one of the three laureates of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, attends a press conference at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF), the U.S., Oct. 5, 2009. Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak, all from the United States, won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for revealing the existence and nature of telomerase. (Xinhua/Mao Lei)
Elizabeth H. Blackburn, one of the three U.S. scientists winning this year's Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, is not only a brilliant scientist, but also a warm and special lady, her students and colleagues told Xinhua on Monday.

Beth Cimini, a 23-year-old PhD student in Blackburn's lab at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF), recalled that she was invited by Blackburn to spend the thanksgiving holiday together last year after she mentioned of not going back to her hometown in Massachusetts in the U.S. east coast.

"She was very concerned that I don't have a place to go, it turned out I already had plans with friends to go out, but just the fact that she thought about it shows she is a really special lady," Cimini said.

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, on Monday announced that 60-year-old Blackburn, together with Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak, won this year's Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for the discovery of "how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase."

"Even without the Nobel Prize, she (Blackburn) is such a role model, so down-to-earth and so nice. She basically founded a field and has been one of the front runners in that field for 20 or 25 years of existence," said Cimini, who joined dozens of people in a celebration held at UCSF's Mission Bay campus Monday morning.

Cimini's words were echoed by Shang Li, an assistant research biochemist of Chinese origin who has worked at Blackburn's lab for8 years.

"The most impressive experience to me is Dr. Blackburn's humbleness and her persistence of pursuing scientific achievement," Li said in an e-mail to Xinhua.

"She has provided us such a wonderful opportunity and research environment to work in her lab. Most importantly, she is always there to help you when you need it," he added.

Susan Desmond-Hellmann, chancellor of UCSF, said she was "absolutely thrilled" about Blackburn's winning of Nobel Prize.

"I can't imagine a person who deserves this recognition more than Liz, both because what a wonderful scientist and wonderful person she is," she told Xinhua.

"She is generous, she is kind, she is a very good collaborator, young people who work in her lab tend to prosper," said the chancellor. "So it's extra nice not to have just brilliance and intellect, but also to be such a warm and special human being."

Describing the Nobel Prize as "just a more recognizable external symbol of science," Blackburn believed scientists should not be motivated for the purpose of winning a prize.

"The Nobel Prize is a wonderful thing, and I think it highlights science to the world at large, but it really isn't the nuts and bolts of how science is done," she told Xinhua.

"Science is such a wonderful process, the intellectual excitement, the collegial interactions, the intellectual community, that's the real point."

"It is wonderful to be honored, but you know the years of research you do are because you really love and are very engaged in the science," the Nobel laureate said. "I think that's the richness that having a career in science can bring them."

Source: Xinhua