U.S. laureate sees winning Nobel Prize as recognition for entire telomere field

An undated photo shows Carol W. Greider from the John Hopkins University, School of Medecine in Baltimore. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)
Three Americans won the Nobel prize for medicine on Monday for revealing the existence and nature of telomerase, which one of the laureates, Professor Carol Greider says is a recognition for the entire telomere field.

"I really see this as a prize for the entire telomere field. We made the discovery of the enzyme (telomerase) but many other people contribute to really understanding the role of telomere disease. So I really see (it) as a prize recognizing the entire telomere field," Professor Greider told Xinhua in a telephone interview.

Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for 2009 on Monday.

Blackburn has U.S. and Australian citizenship. Since 1990, she has been professor of biology and physiology at the University of California, San Francisco. Greider was appointed professor in the department of molecular biology and genetics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore in 1997. Szostak has been at Harvard Medical School since 1979 and is currently professor of genetics at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

The trio were awarded the prize for the discovery of "how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase," the Nobel jury made the announcement at a press conference at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

Telomere and telomerase dysfunction is now linked with a number of disease states, and therapeutic approaches based upon targeting this system are in development.

While talking about how she developed the specialty of studying the ends of chromosomes, Greider said that can be traced to the time when she was a graduate student in Professor Blackburn's lab.

"We were just very fascinated by the problem when I was a student in Professor Blackburn's lab... by the problem of how telomere ends or maintains. And it is really a vary fundamental basic science question," Greider said. "Twenty years later, it turns out there are very important medical implications of this initial discovery."

Their work, done in the late 1970s and 1980s, set the stage for research suggesting that cancer cells use telomerase to sustain their uncontrolled growth. Scientists are studying whether drugs that block the enzyme can fight the disease.

Greider also said she had never thought about winning Nobel Prize someday.

"One can never assume anything about the (Nobel) Prize. Other people have speculated perhaps their discoveries may be potentially someday worthy of a Nobel Prize. but you don't know when would that be or it would even come to pass."

This year is the 100th time the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded, and the first time that any Nobel Prizein the sciences has been awarded to more than one woman. Greider will share the prize of 10 million Swedish crowns (1.42 million U.S. dollars) with the other two recipients.

Since Monday morning's announcement from the Nobel jury, she hasn't even had a chance to think about how to use that money. But she think she "will have a change to step back and be thoughtful about what to do with that money and what need to do."

Source: Xinhua



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