Hopkins' Carol Greider accepts Nobel Prize
Johns Hopkins own Carol W. Greider accepts the Nobel Prize for medicine today in Stockholm -- joining just nine other women who have won the honor for medicine and physiology since the awards were first handed out in 1901.
She won for her discovery of an enzyme called telomerase, a substance that plays a crucial role in the genetic life of cells and holds promise for developing treatments to fight cancer and age-related diseases.
Greider has acknowledged that her win is a boon for women in the sciences, where they struggle for parity. On the day of her win, she also alluded to her daily juggle: she was folding laundry when the early-morning call came from the Nobel chairman notifying her of the honor.
Her fellow winner, Elizabeth H. Blackburn outlined the challenges for women trying to balance home and work life in the demanding sciences. Institutions should offer women more flexible schedules. Those 16-hour days in the lab are not compatible with family life, she said in an interview last year.
Baltimore Sun photo
