Customer Reviews

Elizabeth Blackburn and the Story of Telomeres: Deciphering the Ends of DNA

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This book was a disappointment. The subject should be interesting, but the presentation was poor. The author explains almost none of the science. She gives entire sentences of technical terms without definition or simplification. Perhaps this is because she is a professor of creative writing, not a scientist or science writer. Or perhaps her main interests are Blackburn's struggles with male chauvinism and right wing politics. Anyway, the result is a scientific biography in which the science is almost incomprehensible.

I thought that this was one of the most interesting biographies I've read. Not only does it explain in detail the remarkable scientific progress and discoveries made by Dr. Blackburn, but also her personal and professional evolution. Dr. Blackburn had a free ranging childhood in Tazmania - with unfettered freedom to explore nature and experiment - rare for little girls any where in the world, and particularly fascinating on an island with unique species, topography, and nature. Many of her teachers and mentors recognized her talent and encouraged her, as did her father who was a doctor though he was plagued by alcoholism. She managed to study science even when science was not offered in school. She persevered our of sheer curiosity and passion no matter what the obstacles were - and always some unusual teacher or helpful scholarship committee spotted her as gifted and managed to find a way for her to bloom.

Most books about women scientists treat them as walking dogs - but this one avoids political postering about feminism and explains Blackburn development as a result of her passion for lab work and finding answers. As an undergraduate, she sees herself as a Lab Rat not an exceptional student. Admirably, there is no emphasis on her challenges as a female until she finishes her undergraduate degree in England and goes to Yale University, where she first encounters blatent gender discrimination. Even then, she takes great pains never to complain about being treated differently from male researches, wary of being labeled a trouble-maker - and simply seeks venues where she can do her work. First and foremost, she is an avid scientist, never a wronged woman (despite the fact that she knew she was being discriminated against in pay, grants, and lab space - especially at UC Berkeley).

Realizing that she could not longer get the funds of support for further research at UC Berkeley she accepted a generous offer at the newly emerging biogenetic research campus of the University of California at San Francisco at Mission Bay. At last, she finally had the funds and lab space to complete her remarkable discoveries about telomers and telomerase - the secret to aging, fighting cancer - and understand how DNA eventually unravels in all species. In a unique cooperation with a psychologist, she documents how DNA break down in proportion to specific physical and emotional problems including aging, stress, lack of exercise, and other demonstrable factors. In particular, she documents how care givers of people with chronic illness, die younger than a control group without such responsibilies.

The book also describes her generosity as a researcher in giving her grad students and assistants credit for their work in support of her research. When she received the Nobel prize for medicine in 2010, after the book had been written a few years before, she shared it with her former student.

I'm an amateur science buff and read a lot of popular science. I found the biography superior to any other I've read about male or female scientists in explaining how Elizabeth Blackburn became a stellar scientist. I ordered the book after hearing Dr. Blackburn speak at Mission Bay. I was so impressed by her discoveries and charmed by her warmth that I wanted to learn more about her - before she received the Nobel. I told friends with me at the presentation that I thought she should receive a Nobel - and two years later was thrilled when she did.

Many people to whom I've given the book have been frustrated by the technical explanations of how DNA works. I'm an architect who studied some science as an undergraduate. I found the explanations clear and exciting. Readers who cannot understand the science in this book would do well to read Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, and a good biography of James Watson, the discoverer of DNA. It is sad that the level of scientific knowledge, even among otherwise very well educated Americans, is appallingly limited.