Book Review

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

N Engl J Med 2007; 357:2739-2740December 27, 2007

Article

Elizabeth Blackburn and the Story of Telomeres: Deciphering the Ends of DNA
By Catherine Brady. 392 pp., illustrated. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2007. $29.95. ISBN: 978-0-262-02622-2

Elizabeth Blackburn is a superbly innovative experimentalist, a charismatic public speaker, and a warm and supportive advocate for the many young women and men who have trained in her research group. Elizabeth Blackburn and the Story of Telomeres, the new biography by Catherine Brady, therefore raises high expectations.

In telling the story of telomeres, the author's scholarship is commendable. Telomeres are the protective DNA–protein complexes at the ends of linear chromosomes, and telomerase is the unusual RNA-containing enzyme that is responsible for the synthesis and maintenance of telomeric DNA in most organisms. Telomerase has the ability to confer human cells with replicative immortality, which on the one hand forestalls the aging of certain cells and tissues, but on the other hand contributes to carcinogenesis. Blackburn determined the very first telomeric DNA sequence with Joseph Gall, performed the experiments that suggested the existence of a telomere-extending enzyme with Jack Szostak, and discovered the enzyme, which is now called telomerase, with Carol Greider. As the common denominator in these discoveries, Blackburn is the undisputed mother of this now vibrant field of basic and medical research. And because she continues to do groundbreaking and influential work on this topic, she is a mother who has nurtured her child into maturity.

The account of the research is thorough and accurate, and credit is painstakingly attributed to multiple workers in the field. To keep the scientific account from becoming overly dry, the author ties her descriptions of the research to descriptions of the personalities of those who are doing the work. Yet many of the details of the science will be challenging to follow for those who are not schooled in molecular biology. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I might have preferred some additional scientific illustrations to clarify the research.

Brady's style is to intersperse storytelling with excerpts from interviews with former members of Blackburn's laboratory and with others in the field. Perhaps this technique provides a more objective view, but it also distances the reader and keeps him or her from becoming totally immersed in the life of Blackburn's laboratory. This is in contrast to Brenda Maddox's Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA (New York: HarperCollins, 2002) and James Watson's The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA (New York: Atheneum, 1968), two tales of science that I found to be as gripping as good mystery novels.

The book paints a picture of Blackburn as a “nice girl” who was “polite and deferential” even through graduate school — always exceedingly bright but not disposed to touting her intelligence. She was undemanding and was a tenured professor before she learned to negotiate even for adequate space for her laboratory. To put it another way, she is described as always having been brave, but only more recently assertive.

In addition to telling the story of Blackburn and the story of the discovery of telomerase, Brady weaves yet a third story line into the book — the challenges of being a woman in science. As timely and thought-provoking as this topic may be, it is not always seamlessly integrated. The treatment is least successful in chapter 10, when Brady switches abruptly from Blackburn's story to a listing of statistics on the gender distribution of recipients of B.A. and Ph.D. degrees in biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering. The connection between these topics is much more natural in chapter 7, in the discussion of Blackburn's service as chair of a basic science department at the University of California at San Francisco's large and distinguished school of medicine. The tension between scheduling child care and being expected to attend early morning committee meetings and evening events was clearly something that affected Blackburn and is also an ongoing struggle for women in science — and for those men who have child care responsibilities.

The book ends with a compelling description of Blackburn's time on the President's Council on Bioethics, which was charged with evaluating the ethics of human embryonic stem-cell research, the funding for which had just been severely limited by President Bush's August 9, 2001, executive order. Blackburn did not serve quietly, nor did she leave quietly when her appointment was unceremoniously not renewed. Brady uses these events to show how Blackburn had grown from a “friendly and undemanding” graduate student who developed “protective coloration” to blend in with the men to an “astonishingly frank” champion of “accurate representation of the available scientific information” who was bold enough to speak publicly about her concerns. Independent of Blackburn's involvement, Brady's description of the tensions between the faith-based members of the council who opposed human embryonic stem-cell research and the scientists who were committed to a rational examination of both the ethics and the medical potential of the research provides a sobering reminder of a broader divide in American society today.

All told, in Elizabeth Blackburn and the Story of Telomeres, Brady does a credible job of capturing the joys and trials of scientific discovery through the journey of one female scientist. And although Blackburn is certainly not an average woman scientist, there are many features of her journey that others who are interested in medical science — women and men alike — will connect with.

Thomas R. Cech, Ph.D.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, MD 20815
president@hhmi.org