**This year’s Nobel prize for medicine goes to the three US researchers who discovered how the body protects the chromosomes housing vital genetic code.**Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak jointly share the award.
Their work revealed how the chromosomes can be copied and has helped further our understanding on human ageing, cancer and stem cells.
The answer lies at the ends of the chromosomes - the telomeres - and in an enzyme that forms them - telomerase.