Australia's first female Nobel laureate, molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn, is being hailed as an inspiration in her home state of Tasmania.

Her work with two colleagues in the US found a key to staving off the ravages of ageing that has been praised as holding the promise of human bodies that don't grow frail with time or let cancer grow.

Premier David Bartlett on Tuesday congratulated Professor Blackburn, 60, saying it was wonderful to see someone who grew up in Tasmania be recognised at the highest level.

"Her success can be an inspiration to young Tasmanians in knowing that from this wonderful state it is possible to achieve anything," he said in a statement.

"That is the powerful message that I would like our young people to take from Professor Blackburn's magnificent achievement.

"It is a reminder to young people of the importance of science and research."

Prof Blackburn overnight shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with her two colleagues.

Her eldest sister, Katherine Marsden, of Hobart, received a phone call from Prof Blackburn shortly after the announcement.

"She was just sitting down with her husband in their home in San Francisco to have a coffee when she received a phone call about her award," Mrs Marsden told The Examiner.

"I believe the first thing she did was call the family, who are all very proud of her.

"She sounded excited but she is also very modest."

Prof Blackburn, along with Americans Carol Greider and Jack Szostak, won the Nobel Prize for discovering an enzyme that helps chromosomes in cells stay eternally young.

"It sort of translates into a fountain of youth - the number of years of healthy living is related to telomere length," Prof Blackburn said in the US overnight, referring to an enzyme she helped discover in the mid 1970s.

"We don't think clocks will be turned back but it is a question of whether we will extend our health span."

Prof Blackburn became an American citizen in 2003.

In 1978, she accepted a position as an assistant professor at the University of California, where she conducted her ground-breaking research into DNA.

Prof Blackburn was one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2007 and scientific circles have speculated for some time that she might be a Nobel laureate.