Carol Greider

University of California, San Francisco

Carol Greider is a molecular biologist and Distinguished Professor at the University of California, San Francisco. She shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak for the discovery of telomerase, the enzyme that synthesizes telomere DNA. As a graduate student in Blackburn's lab at UC Berkeley in 1984, Greider discovered telomerase on Christmas Day—a landmark moment in molecular biology. Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein complex that uses an integral RNA template to extend the repetitive DNA sequences (telomeres) at the ends of chromosomes, solving the end-replication problem and preventing chromosomal degradation with each cell division. This discovery has profound implications for cancer biology, aging, and human diseases. Telomerase is highly active in most cancer cells, making them essentially immortal, while its progressive shortening in normal cells is linked to aging and diseases such as dyskeratosis congenita, pulmonary fibrosis, and aplastic anemia. Greider's laboratory has continued to uncover molecular mechanisms of telomere maintenance and the consequences of telomere dysfunction. Her work has inspired therapeutic strategies targeting telomerase for cancer treatment and telomere lengthening for age-related diseases. She previously served as Director of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine before moving to UCSF. She has received the Gairdner Foundation International Award, the Lasker Award, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.