Carol Widney Greider, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2009

Carolyn Widney "Carol" Greider (born April 15, 1961) is 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. Szostak, for their discovery that telomeres are protected from progressive shortening by the enzyme telomerase.

Awards and honours

• Gairdner Foundation International Award (1998)
• Member of the American Society for Cell Biology (1999)
• Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award (2000)
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2003)
• Member of the National Academy of Sciences (2003)
• Richard Lounsbery Award (2003), National Academy of Sciences
• Member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (2004)
• Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (2006) (shared with Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak)
• Dickson Prize in Medicine (2006)
• Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences (2006) (shared with Elizabeth Blackburn)
• Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize of Columbia University (2007) (shared with Elizabeth Blackburn and Joseph G. Gall)
• Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2009) (shared with Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak)"
• Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (2009) (shared with Elizabeth Blackburn)
• Member of the Institute of Medicine (2010)