Carol Greider shares 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Ellison Medical Foundation 1998 Senior Scholar Carol Greider of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, together with Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco, and Jack Szostak of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. The prize was given in recognition "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase." The integrity and maintenance of telomeres, the specialized cap structures at the ends of chromosomes, determine the number of times a cell may divide, and the work pioneered by these three scientists has been extremely influential in understanding how cell proliferation and cell senescence are regulated. Their work has catalyzed a host of later studies that have linked telomerase to cancer, aging, and age-related decline in humans. The Ellison Medical Foundation extends congratulations to all three for the well-deserved honor.

For further information, see: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2009/index.html