SBS documentary wins international news Emmy

2010 SBS documentary Immortal has picked up an international News and Documentary Emmy Award in the Outstanding Science and Technology Programming category.

Immortal,  retitled Decoding Immortality for the American audience, was broadcast on the Smithsonian Channel in the US.

It follows the work of Australian scientist Professor Elizabeth Blackburn and her team’s 2009 discovery of an enzyme deep in the DNA of a single-celled pond creature, the so-called ‘immortalising’ enzyme. The discovery was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

The News & Documentary Emmy Awards were presented on Monday in New York City, attended by more than 900 television and news media industry executives, news and documentary producers and journalists.

Immortal was written and directed by Sonya Pemberton and produced by December Films for SBS and commissioned by John Godfrey as part of Screen Australia’s National Documentary Program.

UPDATE: SBS replays Immortal 8:30pm Sunday October 14.