|
 |
Recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, Carol Greider is the first woman at a Maryland institution to win the award. Along with the work of co-winners Elizabeth Blackburn (her graduate advisor at U.C. Berkeley) and Jack Szostak, Greider’s research at Johns Hopkins has contributed immensely to the understanding of telomeres and their shortening.
Telomeres are sequences of repetitive DNA at the ends of chromosomes that protect the chromosome from unintentional annealing and degradation. In each replication of a chromosome, telomeres shorten due to the way they are added on to chromosome ends by the enzyme telomerase, which was discovered by Greider and Blackburn in 1985. Intriguingly, most of what we know about telomeres comes from the study of a protozoan with 40,000 chromosomes per cell (compared to our 46), Tetrahymena. More on Greider’s research can be read at her lab’s website.
In a talk she gave last week at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Greider made a list of what you need to become a successful scientist:
Although her talk was mainly on her research with telomeres, this list is the part that I really took to heart. It can now be found above my lab bench.
This is good advice for being successful in anything you try to do.
2011…
We are a group of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community. Your site offered us with valuable information to work on. You have done an impressive job and our entire community will be grateful to you….