SBS doco wins Science Media award

2010 SBS documentary Immortal, produced by December Media / Pemberton Films, has won the Special Jury Award at the Jackson Hole Science Media Awards in Denver, USA.

The doco follows the work of Australian scientist Professor Elizabeth Blackburn and her team’s discovery of an enzyme in the DNA of a single-celled pond creature, the so-called ‘immortalising’ enzyme. The discovery was previously awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

The doco was retitled Decoding Immortality for the American audience and broadcast on the Smithsonian Channel.

Decoding Immortality has also been nominated at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards to be presented in October in New York.

Immortal has previously won Best Science at the 2011 Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, Best Documentary at the 2011 National Press Club, and winning filmmaker Sonya Pemberton the 2011 Health Journalist of the Year.