Geneticist Jack W. Szostak discovered and proved over 30 years ago that telomeres, structures located at the ends of chromosomes, are a protective mechanism for DNA and that they shorten with each cell division.
Together with Liz Blackburn, an American biologist born in Australia, and Carol Greider, an American molecular biologist, this Canadian-born individual of Polish and British descent received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009 for this discovery. It took several decades for the academic community to understand the significance of this discovery, and telomeres are now considered the most reliable indicator of aging speed, and they are used to estimate, in layman’s and popular terms, how long we will live. In the most prestigious laboratories worldwide, including the Laboratory for Molecular and Cellular Biology at the Ruđer Bošković Institute, for example, anyone can undergo testing that determines and analyzes the length of human telomeres. However, Professor of Genetics Jack Szostak does not live on past glory at all. Moreover, he is unwaveringly engaged in creating artificial life in his American laboratory. When discussing his successes, he prominently highlights his students and colleagues with whom he works on the fascinating emergence of synthetic life. In addition to all this, he is a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University, and a prominent researcher of Alexa Rich at Massachusetts General Hospital, and it took him only half a day to respond to questions from Tehnopolis – Lider’s monthly magazine on innovation, science, and technology – sent via email. For inspiration to local interlocutors: if there were no time difference, he would surely have responded to the email instantly, as soon as he received the questions. And he would certainly have signed simply – as Jack.
