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Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak

 Molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn has become the first Australian woman to win a Nobel prize. Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak were awarded a Nobel Prize in medicine for their work on telomeres and stress-related disease. The trio's research and testing found that psychological stress causes cells to age physically, as evidenced by the wearing down of chromosome tips, known as telomeres.

Originally from Tasmania, Elizabeth Blackburn works at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Carol Greider works at Johns Hopkins University' Jack Szostak works at Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

"She is only the ninth woman to be awarded the physiology or medicine prize since its inception in 1909, and only the 36th female laureate in any category since 1901, when the first prizes were awarded in chemistry, physics, medicine and peace."

Source: news.com.au

"According to the Royal Swedish Academy, this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to three scientists for solving a major problem in biology: how chromosomes can be copied in a complete way during cell divisions and how they are protected against degradation."

Source: hhmi.org