I am (unfortunately) not a biologist, but the abstract of their paper in Nature [1] seems to suggest that their research is notable not because they discovered

I am (unfortunately) not a biologist, but the abstract of their paper in Nature [1] seems to suggest that their research is notable not because they discovered telomerase is related to ageing, but because they figured out why lack of telomerase causes cells to stop regenerating and organs to fail: We demonstrate that telomere dysfunction activates p53 which in turn binds and represses PGC-1α and PGC-1β promoters, thereby forging a direct link between telomere and mitochondrial biology. We propose that this telomere–p53–PGC axis contributes to organ and metabolic failure and to diminishing organismal fitness in the setting of telomere dysfunction. [1]: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature09787.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...