Carol W. Greider
Carol W. Greider
Carolyn Widney "Carol" Greideris an American molecular biologist. She is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, Daniel Nathans Professor and Director of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Johns Hopkins University. She discovered the enzyme telomerase in 1984, when she was a graduate student of Elizabeth Blackburn at the University of California, Berkeley. Greider pioneered research on the structure of telomeres, the ends of the chromosomes. She was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Blackburn and Jack W...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth15 April 1961
CountryUnited States of America
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It takes years to realize the multiple benefits of science; without adequate, sustained funding for research, the careers of many bright, young scientists may come to a screeching halt.
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What intrigues basic scientists like me is that anytime we do a series of experiments, there are going to be three or four new questions that come up when you think you've answered one.
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What I found out on Christmas Day 1984, through biochemical evidence, was that telomeres could be lengthened by the enzyme we called telomerase, which keeps the telomeres from wearing down. After I found that out, I went home and put on Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the USA,' which was just out, and I danced and danced and danced.
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Students and postdoctoral fellows largely depend on the support of the public sector to finance the training and research that will make them world-renowned scientists.
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One of the lessons I have learned in the different stages of my career is that science is not done alone. It is through talking with others and sharing that progress is made.
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My father worked in high-energy nuclear physics, and my mother was a mycologist and a geneticist. After both parents completed postdoctoral fellowships in San Diego in 1962, my father took a faculty position in the Physics Department at Yale, and so the family moved to New Haven, Connecticut.
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In junior high school, I learned that I could be good at school. I remember liking the freedom to choose classes and the pleasure of learning and doing well. My perseverance and love of reading had somehow allowed me to overcome many disadvantages of dyslexia, and I read a lot of books for pleasure.
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In 1978, Elizabeth Blackburn, working with Joe Gall, identified the DNA sequence of telomeres. Every time a cell divides, it gets shorter. But telomeres usually don't. So there must be something happening to the telomeres to keep their length in equilibrium.
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As a kid, I thought of myself as stupid because I needed remedial help. It was not until much later that I figured out that I was dyslexic and that my trouble with spelling and sounding out words did not mean I was stupid, but early impressions stuck with me and colored my world for a time.
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I think actively promoting women in science is very important because the data has certainly shown that there has been an underrepresentation.
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Federal funding for biomedical sciences plays a critical role in training the next generation of scientists.
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Science can promote an understanding between people at a really fundamental level.
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I finished my Ph.D. at Berkeley in November 1987 and took a position as an independent fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in January 1988.
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I enjoyed biology in high school, and that brought me to a research lab at U.C. Santa Barbara. I loved doing experiments, and I had fun with them. I realized this kind of problem-solving fit my intellectual style.