Carol W. Greider

Carol W. Greider
Greider in 2021
Born	Carolyn Widney Greider (1961-04-15) April 15, 1961 (age 63) San Diego, California, U.S.
Education	University of California, Santa Barbara (BA) University of Göttingen University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Known for	Discovery of telomerase
Spouse	Nathaniel C. Comfort ​ ​ (m. 1993; div. 2011)​
Children	2
Awards	Richard Lounsbery Award (2003) Lasker Award (2006) Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize (2007) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2009)
Scientific career
Fields	Molecular biology
Institutions	Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Johns Hopkins School of Medicine University of California, Santa Cruz
Thesis	Identification of a specific telomere terminal transferase activity in Tetrahymena extracts (1985)
Doctoral advisor	Elizabeth Blackburn
Other academic advisors	Beatrice M. Sweeney David J. Asai Leslie Wilson

Carolyn Widney Greider (born April 15, 1961) is an American molecular biologist and Nobel laureate. She joined the University of California, Santa Cruz as a Distinguished Professor in the department of molecular, cell, and developmental biology^[1] in October 2020.

Greider discovered the enzyme telomerase in 1984, while 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.^[2]