Outspoken Australian scientist dropped by Bush wins Nobel

AUSTRALIAN Elizabeth Blackburn has won the Nobel Prize for medicine, setting a landmark for the nation's scientists.
The Tasmanian-born molecular biologist's Nobel is the first for an Australian woman.
Professor Blackburn, 60, who now works in San Francisco, pioneered the study of telomeres, caps that protect chromosomes in cells, and is a discoverer of telomerase, an enzyme that does the protecting.
Her work has opened a new field of science, raising the prospects of such medical breakthroughs as interfering with cancerous cells.
Professor Blackburn won with her long-time US collaborators Jack Szostak, who worked on the telemores unique DNA sequence, and Carol Greider, who co-identified the telomerase.
Australia's 11th Nobel laureate, Professor Blackburn is a vocal advocate of independent scientific thought who fell out with the Bush administration over cloning and stem cells.
She was dropped from George Bush's Council on Bioethics in 2004 after questioning its bias.

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