Elizabeth Helen Blackburn is an Australian-American Nobel laureate who is a leader in the area of telomere and telomerase research.

She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009 alongside Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak for their discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.

Her work has deepened the understanding of how telomeres act to preserve the integrity of genomes.

She was elected as member of the European Academy of Engineering in 2012.