Elizabeth Blackburn

The Salk Institute for Biological Studies has appointed Elizabeth Blackburn as president. Blackburn will join the Salk Institute effective Jan. 1, 2016. In 2001, she served as a Salk non-resident fellow. Blackburn is currently a professor in the department of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. She won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009 for discovering the molecular nature of telomeres and for co-discovering telomerase. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Blackburn has received nearly every major award in science, including the Lasker, Gruber, and Gairdner prizes.