Many scientists spend their lives trying to answer just one question. But geneticist Jack Szostak says there’s lots of problems to solve. He spent the first two decades of his career investigating chromosomes, specifically the role played by telomeres, tiny structures at the ends of chromosomes, and the enzyme telomerase, which revolutionized what we know about the aging process.
That research, from the 1980s, earned him a share of the 2009 Nobel prize for physiology or medicine. In the 1990s, Szostak turned his attention to RNA and its role in the early evolution of life.
A Nobel Winner Looks to Create Life in His Lab
