Australian Nobel Laureate in conversation

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Australian Nobel Laureate in conversation


Elizabeth Blackburn and Brian Schmidt – Australian Nobel Laureate in conversation

 

Date

Tuesday, 13 August 2019
Time: 9.30 – 11:30am


The chance to chat with an Australian Nobel Laureate is rare – the chance to chat with two at once is like seeing Halley’s comet. This National Science Week, that chance is yours.

Join us in Canberra on 13 August for the chance to hear from Nobel Laureates Professor Elizabeth Blackburn and Professor Brian Schmidt.

Professor Elizabeth Blackburn is building potential for longevity into the future.
She explores the complex quest to beat the ageing process, something humans have been mystified by for centuries. It’s seen in stories about the mythical Fountain of Youth, in the Egyptians’ pursuit of the afterlife, in the development of bionic body parts and in the cryogenic freezing of dead bodies for potential reanimation – we are obsessed with cheating death.

Thanks to Blackburn’s work, which holds extraordinary promise for new approaches to chronic disease, cancer, and age-related disorders, we’re getting closer to understanding a crucial key to extending healthy life. She was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2009 for discovering the key protective role of telomeres, the caps at the end of our chromosomes, that play an important part in keeping us healthy as we age

Professor Brian Schmidt looked to the deep past to build understanding of where we came from.

The universe is expanding, and most astrophysicists thought that this would slow down over time due to gravity. However, using light from distant supernovae (exploding stars) Schmidt worked with the High-Z Supernova Search Team to prove that the expansion of the universe is actually accelerating.

As he made the discovery, Schmidt and his team also set the international discovery course to explore the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.


 

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