A Marlborough Street resident was named a recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine last week for his work predicting and then discovering telomerase, an enzyme that builds and maintains the protective caps at the tips of chromosomes.
Jack W. Szostak, PhD, of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Department of Molecular Biology and Harvard Medical School will split the $1.4 million prize equally with Elizabeth H. Blackburn, PhD, of the University of California at San Francisco and Carol W. Greider, PhD, of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In 2006, the three researchers shared the Lasker Award for Basic Science for the same work.
“What started off as work on a really basic question has turned out, to our pleasant surprise, to have much broader implications,’’ Szostak, 56, said at an press conference on Oct. 4, the same day he received the prestigious award. “This is the highest scientific honor. It’s great to receive that kind of recognition.’’
The existence of telomeres – molecular caps at the ends of chromosomes – was hypothesized in the 1930s from the observation that broken chromosome fragments fuse with each other – something that normal chromosome ends never do. In 1980, Szostak, a yeast geneticist, began a collaboration with Blackburn that showed repeated nucleotide sequences she had identified in telomeres of the single-celled protozoan Tetrahymena also protected yeast DNA segments from degradation.
Their studies led to the discovery that normal yeast chromosomes had a related but distinct structure and that Tetrahymena telomeres, when placed in yeast, lengthened by adding new sequences to the end of the DNA. That finding led to the prediction that a new enzyme was adding the protective sequences to the chromosome tips.
Blackburn and Greider went on to isolate telomerase, while Szostak identified a protein essential for maintaining telomeres in yeast, which turned out to be a key component of the enzyme. His work showed for the first time that the inability to add nucleotide repeats to chromosomes led to telomere shortening and eventually cell death. This was the first link between the molecular biology of telomeres and cellular senescence, the aging and death of cells.
Although this work was not known to be relevant to human disease when carried out in the 1980s, subsequent studies of telomeres and telomerase in human cells have shown that the enzyme plays crucial roles in both cancer and aging.
Szostak's research group has followed a different path in recent years, investigating the molecular origins of life. The researchers are seeking to understand how complex chemicals were able to self-assemble and combine to form simple organisms that can reproduce and evolve.
They are currently working to develop simple cell-like structures incorporating both a nucleic acid – such as RNA or DNA – and an enclosing membrane, investigating ways to use the cell's protein-making machinery to create molecules of interest and using the power of natural selection to create and study new RNA and protein sequences.
Szostak is the Alex Rich Distinguished Investigator in the MGH Department of Molecular Biology, a member of the hospital's Center for Computational and Integrative Biology, a professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He is a graduate of McGill University and holds a PhD from Cornell University.

While runners in the Boston Marathon contribute to numerous worthy causes each year, Team Esplanade participants and patrons have the distinction of being able to view the fruits of their labor firsthand when they visit the 3-mile park that runs along the Charles River.
“People who support Team Esplanade can see the trees pruned and parked benches restored,” said Sylvia Salas, executive director of the non-profit Esplanade Association. “It’s very gratifying.”
Launched by the Esplanade Association in 2008, Team Esplanade has raised more than $150,000 to date to support improvements to the Charles River Esplanade and is now in its third and final year as an official charity of the Boston Marathon, stepping aside next year to make the status available to another area nonprofit.
The team will provide 15 “waiver” numbers for runners who can’t meet the time qualifications for the next marathon, eight of which are still available. In taking a waiver number, the runner commits to raising at least $3,250 for the Esplanade Association and completing the 26.2-mile course in less than six hours, as well as attending the Team Esplanade kickoff meeting on Nov. 14 and attending two of the first three team training-runs, set for Nov. 21 and Dec. 5 and 19.
“What’s great about this event is you don’t have to be a distance runner,” said Chris Murton, the Esplanade Association’s project coordinator. “Everyone who started the marathon over the last two years has finished it, free of injuries.”
Qualified runners can also join Team Esplanade. They are committed to raising only $750 each and will be given access to the team’s nutritionist, flexibility coach and sports psychologist, Rick Muir.
Muir has served as coach of the Team Esplanade since 2008 and was previously the head coach of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of America's Team in Training program for 12 years, beginning in 1996. He also ran the Boston Marathon as a qualified runner seven times between 1979 and 1997.
“The marathon challenge is symbolic of the challenge of fundraising,” Muir said. “Not everyone steps up to the challenge of a marathon, but those who do are the same types who support charities.”
Muir added, “I’m a firm believer in the mission of the Esplanade Association. We owe it to ourselves, our children and future generations to protect public places.”
Non-runners can still support Team Esplanade through donations, including corporations that otherwise couldn’t afford to be marathon sponsors on their own.
“The Boston Marathon is a huge media event,” Murton said. “We’re offering corporate sponsors a chance to have their name used in the marathon program and in our newsletters and Web sites.”
Besides helping to preserve one of the city’s most treasured landmarks, Team Esplanade allows the Esplanade Association to participate in one of the most anticipated happenings of the year in Boston.
“It’s one of the sporting world’s most prestigious and altruistic events,” Murton said. “We’re fortunate to be a part of it.”
For interested parties, a Team Esplanade information session, takes place at the Hatch Shell on the Charles River Esplanade on Saturday Oct. 24, at 10:30 a.m. More information on Team Esplanade is also available online at www.esplanadeassociation.org/special_events/boston_marathon.html.

The 110-member Back Bay Chorale, conducted by Music Director Scott Allen Jarrett, embarks on an ambitious season featuring little-known gems of the choral repertoire together with monumental and beloved masterpieces.
The season opens on Nov. 20 with an all-italian concert featuring 19th and 20th century sacred and secular works: Messa di Requiem by Ildebrando Pizzetti and works by Verdi, Rossini and Mascagni. The Pizzetti Requiem is a seldom heard, but stunning work inspired by Gregorian chant featuring a 12-part choir.
On Dec. 19 and 20, the Chorale, the Chorale, together with Majestic Brass and the Marsh Chaple organ will celebrate the season with holiday favorites and carol sing-a-longs with its “A Boston Christmas” concert.
The third concert of the season on March 13, 2010, is Handel's monumental Israel in Egypt. The choral oratorio features 28 massive double choruses interpreting old testament passages from Exodus and the psalms, with highlights including choruses dramatically evoking the plagues of Egypt and the story of Moses.
The season culminates in the final concert on May 15, 2010, when the choir presents J.S. Bach's sublime Mass in B Minor. Widely regarded as one of the supreme achievements of classical music, it has been described as “a synthesis of every stylistic and technical contribution that Bach made to music” and “a summary of his writing for voice, not only in its variety of styles, compositional devices, and range of sonorities, but also in its high level of technical polish...Bach's mighty setting preserved the musical and artistic creed of its creator for posterity.”
Since its founding in 1973 by Larry Hill, the Back Bay Chorale has performed more than 100 concerts in such venues as Symphony Hall, Sanders Theatre at Harvard University, Emmanuel Church, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Church of the Covenant, the Hatch Shell on the Charles River Esplanade, New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Providence's Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul. In addition to performances with its past music directors, Larry Hill, Beverly Taylor, Julian Wachner and James Olesen, the Chorale has appeared with the Boston Pops under John Williams and Keith Lockhart, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra under Gunther Schuller and Gisele Ben-Dor, the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra under David Commanday, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project under Gil Rose. The Back Bay Chorale's repertoire spans the full range of choral literature, from the masterworks of the Renaissance, baroque, classical and modern periods to the most contemporary of compositions.

Axelle Fine Arts Galerie presents a stunning collection of new paintings by Michel Delacroix, celebrated master of the Naïf tradition and self-styled “painter of dreams and of the poetic past,” in a month-long exhibit beginning in November.
Internationally acclaimed for his nostalgic visions of the city of light, Delacroix has devoted five decades to painting what he calls “the Paris of then,” the dream-like place the city became during the 1940s. From sweeping skylines of the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral to quiet, snow covered Parisian streets, these works filled with beauty and romance are sure to sweep you back to a city of by-gone years and innocent splendors.
On Nov. 13, Axelle Fine Arts and Michel Delacroix are pleased to donate 10 percent of all opening proceeds to Camp Harbor View. Founded in 2007 by Mayor Thomas Menino and Jack Connors Jr., Camp Harbor View is dedicated to offering children from Boston’s at-risk neighborhoods an experience that gives them the opportunity to grow, learn and have fun- all in a beautiful camp setting on Long Island in Boston Harbor.
Born in 1933, Delacroix has been painting since the age of 5 and exhibiting professionally for more than 50 years. Throughout the course of his career, he has been honored with numerous awards including the Grand Prix des Amateurs d’Art, Paris (1973), The Grand Prix de la Cote d’Azur, Cannes (1976) and the Premier Prix de Sept Collines, Rome (1976). His work can be found in several public and private collections including the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain in Paris and the Musée International d’Art Naïf. Delacroix’s paintings have been featured in more than 300 solo exhibitions in the United States alone. He continues to exhibit abroad in Europe and Japan.
The exhibit runs at the gallery located at 91 Newbury St., from Nov. 13 through De. 6. An artists’ reception takes place at the gallery on Friday, Nov. 13. For more information on Axelle Fine Arts Galerie, | visit www.axelle.com.

The Fairmont Copley Plaza was the unlikely venue for 10 semi-final boxing bouts Thursday night when the New England Travel Team/Marciano Tournament came to the hotel’s Grand Ballroom.
The event was the first at the hotel for the Local Boxing Committee of the New England Association, Inc., the self-described “governing body of amateur boxing in the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Rhode Island under the authority of United States Amateur Boxing, Inc of Colorado Springs, Colo., and the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act.” The evening’s sponsor was the University Club of Boston.
“It just fell into our laps, so we ran with it,” said the event organizer, Peter Laird Sr. of the University Club. “But there are members with an interest in boxing whom you would never expect.”
Built in 1912, the Fairmont Copley Plaza was constructed on the original site of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and takes its name from the renowned American painter John Singleton Copley (1738-1774). The hotel's architect, Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, who also designed its sister establishment, The Plaza in New York, fused French and Venetian Renaissance styles into the facade. The hotel, which has been graced by nearly every U.S. President since William Howard Taft, underwent a $34 million renovation project five years ago.