Carol W. Greider - On Winning a Nobel Prize in Science - Interview - NYTimes

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October 13, 2009

A CONVERSATION WITH CAROL W. GREIDER

On Winning a Nobel Prize in ScienceByCLAUDIA DREIFUS

Q. IS IT TRUE THAT YOU WERE DOING LAUNDRY WHEN YOU GOT THAT EARLY MORNING CALL

FROM STOCKHOLM?

A. Yes. I dont usually do the laundry so early in the morning, but I was already up, and there was all this

laundry staring at me. I was supposed to later meet two women friends to take our morning spin class.

People had speculated that sometime in the next five years, something like this might happen. And last year

people said, Maybe, it will be, and it wasnt. Reuters had made this prediction that we might get it this

time. But I really didnt have any idea. Maybe it would never happen. There are important fundamental

discoveries that never get prizes. After I got the call, I sent my friend an e-mail: Im sorry I cant spin right

now. Ive won the Nobel Prize.

Q. DID YOU ALWAYS WANT TO BE A BIOLOGIST?

A. My parents were scientists. But I wasnt the sort of child who did science fairs. One of the things I was

thinking about today is that as a kid I had dyslexia. I had a lot of trouble in school and was put into remedial

classes. I thought that I was stupid.

Q. THAT MUST HAVE HURT.

A. Sure. Yes. It was hard to overcome that. I kept thinking of ways to compensate. I learned to memorize

things very well because I just couldnt spell words. So later when I got to take classes like chemistry and

anatomy where I had to memorize things, it turned out I was very good at that.

I never planned a career. I had these blinders on that got me through a lot of things that might have been

obstacles. I just went forward. Its a skill that I had early on that must have been adaptive. 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. So in order to continue

having fun, I decided to go to graduate school at Berkeley. It was there that I went to Liz Blackburns lab,

where telomeres were being studied.

Q. WHAT ARE TELOMERES?

A. The concept of telomeres was really laid out by H. J. Muller and Barbara McClintock in the 1940s, when

they showed that there must be a special unit, a kind of cap at the end of the chromosome that holds it

together. 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 dont. So there must be something

happening to the telomeres to keep their length in equilibrium. When I went into Liz Blackburns lab in1984 and began working on this, the most exciting question that was being asked there was, If we know

that telomeres get short over time, how can they be relengthened? I set out to look for evidence that there

was such an enzyme as telomerase that would relengthen the telemeres once they shortened.

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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 Springsteens Born in the USA, which was just out, and I

danced and danced and danced.

Q. WHY WAS THAT IMPORTANT?

A. Because broken or shortened telomeres are implicated in a whole group of diseases. Five or six yearslater, we and other groups discovered that telomere shortening played a role in the inability of cells to

divide after a certain number of divisions as well as in cancer. So the possibility of a biochemical therapy

for some of these diseases was now something that could be explored.

Q. ITS BEEN SAID THAT YOU AND DR. BLACKBURN DIDNT RECEIVE THE NOBEL PRIZE EARLIER

BECAUSE IT HADNT YET BEEN PROVED THAT TELOMERES AND TELOMERASE WOULD BE

VALUABLE IN UNDERSTANDING DISEASE. DOES THE PRIZE THIS YEAR MEAN THAT THERE NOW

IS AN ACCEPTANCE OF THEIR VALUE?

A. I certainly hope so. Thats why Nobel Prizes are usually awarded long after the original discovery. It takestime for the medical implications to become clear. I think its clear now that the basic science we did is

important to understanding cancers, some human genetic diseases and the age associated degenerative

diseases. The clinical relevance still needs to be understood in the medical community.

Q. MANY REPORTERS HAVE ASKED WHY TELOMERES RESEARCH SEEMS TO ATTRACT SO MANY

FEMALE INVESTIGATORS. WHATS YOUR ANSWER?

A. Theres nothing about the topic that attracts women. Its probably more the founder effect. Women

researchers were fostered early on by Joe Gall, and they got jobs around the country and they trained other

women. I think theres a slight bias of women to work for women because theres still a slight cultural biasfor men to help men. The derogatory term is the old boys network. Its not that they are biased against

women or want to hurt them. They just dont think of them. And they often feel more comfortable

promoting their male colleagues.

When Lawrence Summers, then the Harvard president, made that statement a few years ago about why

there were fewer successful women in science, I thought, Oh, he couldnt really mean that. After reading

the actual transcript of his statement, it seems he really did say that women cant think in that sort of

scientific fashion. It was ridiculous!

I mean, women do things differently, which is why I think it would be important if more women were athigher levels in academic medicine. I think people might work together more, things might be more

collaborative. It would change how science is done and even how institutions are run. That doesnt mean

that women necessarily have a different way of thinking about the mechanics of experiments. I think its

more a different social way of interacting that would bring results in differently.Q. DO THIS YEARS

NOBELS MEAN THAT WOMEN HAVE FINALLY BEEN ACCEPTED IN SCIENCE?

A. I certainly hope its a sign that things are going to be different in the future. But Im a scientist, right?

This is one event. Im not going to see one event and say its a trend. I hope it is. One of the things I did with

the press conference that Johns Hopkins gave was to have my two kids there. In the newspapers, theres a

picture of me and my kids right there. How many men have won the Nobel in the last few years, and they

have kids the same age as mine, and their kids arent in the picture? Thats a big difference, right? And that

makes a statement.


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Carol W. Greider of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine was one of three women who won a science

Nobel last week, which puts her in some rare company. Only eight women had won in physiology or

medicine, and there has never been a year when three women won Nobels in the sciences. Dr. Greider

shared her prize with Elizabeth H. Blackburn and Jack W. Szostak for their research on telomeres.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

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Carol W. Greider - On Winning a Nobel Prize in Science - Interview - NYTimes

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