The Key to Chromosome Immortality - iBiology & Youreka Science

https://www.ibiology.org/genetics-and...

In the 1980s, scientists knew that DNA polymerase could not copy the ends of chromosomes, yet chromosome ends were still largely maintained in an organism. Additionally, they observed that the ends of chromosomes consists of highly repetitive sequences they called telomeres. Blackburn and her colleagues hypothesized that the cell must have a mechanism to add telomeres to prevent chromosome shortening during replication. In this video, Youreka Science describes the experiment that demonstrated the existence of a distinct enzyme, later named telomerase, that adds telomeres to the ends of chromosomes. This enzyme was later found to be involved in aging, cancer, and other diseases.

This video is a complement to Elizabeth Blackburn’s iBiology Discovery talk, where Blackburn recalls the events that led to the discovery of telomerase.

About Youreka Science:
Youreka Science was created by Florie Charles, a cancer researcher at UCSF. While teaching 5th graders about the structure of a cell, Charles realized the importance of incorporating scientific findings into classroom in an easy-to-understand way. From that she started creating whiteboard drawings that explained recent papers in the scientific literature to the general public. Charles has created over twenty videos about the latest scientific experiments and is now joined by Alex Olson to produce more fun and engaging videos. Learn more at http://yourekascience.org/.