Last week I had the tremendous pleasure of hosting a collection of events in honour of Professor Elizabeth Blackburn, Australia’s first female Nobel laureate, at several venues in Canberra, including: Questacon, the John Curtin School of Medical Research and Parliament House.

• 24 February 2010

Professor Blackburn engages young students in an activity at Questacon

Each event in honour of Professor Blackburn was aimed at giving a different target audience the opportunity to interact with the Nobel Laureate in a personal way.

Starting at Questacon in the morning, we were quite fortunate to have the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd not only address the audience, but also participate in an activity conducted by the Questacon Excited Particles.  This hands on experience illustrated Professor Blackburn’s team discovery of the role of Telomerase, the enzyme responsible for maintaining the end of chromosomes to prevent them from being damaged during replication.  The ability of the Excited Particles to convey this complex science to a group of year 5 and 6 students was truly magical.

In the afternoon, we moved on to the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the ANU, where Professor Blackburn and I conducted a question and answer session with approximately 150 year 12 students.  Questions came not only from Canberra students, but from National Youth Science Forum students across Australia.  The students made the most of this once-in-a-lifetime experience; every question was thought provoking and many quite technical.  Professor Blackburn and I enjoyed ourselves so much we continued to take questions from the audience well into overtime. The response and enthusiasm was a delight to see face to face.

Footage from the question and answer session will be available on both the Chief Scientist website and facebook shortly.

Professor Elizabeth Blackburn entertains Professor Sackett and guests at the Parliament House cocktail party

Finally in the evening, my Office and I arranged for an, ‘Inspirational Women in Leadership’ cocktail party at Parliament House.  As no visit to Canberra is complete without a trip to the Hill, Parliament House provided a spectacular backdrop of views for our event.  At the party we were joined by some of Australia’s most inspirational women who represented areas as diverse as politics, defence, healthcare, scientific research, technology and NGOs.

All of the guests were in awe of Professor Blackburn and grateful for an event to explicitly encourage and nourish female leadership.

I trust that Professor Blackburn will take fond memories of Canberra back to San Francisco and that we can entice her to return in the future.  As she continues with her ground breaking work, wherever the research questions take her, I know she will continue to be an inspiration to scientists of all ages in both Australia and across the globe.

Professor Elizabeth Blackburn, Australia's first female Nobel Laureate addresses the guests at the 'Inspirational Women in Leadership' cocktail party held in her honour at Parliament House

Please check out my facebook for more photos and comments:

www.facebook.com/chiefscientist

And for more information on Professor Blackburn and her research, please visit:

http://biochemistry.ucsf.edu/labs/Blackburn

www.facebook.com/pages/ElizabethBlackburn/192511765422?ref=mf

Penny