Doctor Carolyn Widney GreiderWhat to do if you are suffering from learning physical or psychological difficulties? Do you think you are supposed to resign your aspirations of having a university or college degree? Let's know the story of Dr. Carol W. Greider, Carol W. Greider grew up in Davis, California, near the University of California, Davis campus, where her father was a physics professor. Of course, the easiest choice for her would be to enroll in such a close-to-home University or nearby Berkeley for college where most of her high school classmates did. Actually she said she applied to a number of different graduate schools, but not knowing why, she didn't do very well on standardized tests. She recalls that her application package was a bit unusual. She had great research experience, great letters of recommendation, and outstanding grades, but she had poor Graduate Record Examinations. She did not know it at that time but Carol suffers from dyslexia, a learning disorder that manifests itself as a difficulty with reading, spelling and in some cases mathematics. This disorder is variously considered a learning disability, a language disability, and a reading disability. The fact was only two schools-the California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, CA) and the University of California, Berkeley- offered her an interview. In 1983 she graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with a B.A. in biology. In 1987 at the University of California, Berkeley, under Elizabeth Blackburn, she completed her Ph.D. in molecular biology. With Blackburn, she co-discovered telomerase, a key player in cancer. Carol completed her postdoctoral work and accepted a faculty position at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Long Island, NY. In 1997 she accepted a faculty position at Johns Hopkins. Let's remember she was dyslexic?.. so what? Carol W. Greider was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack W. Szostak, for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase. Let me say Congratulations, Dr. Carol Greider!!. Your hard work and the right strategies you employed may be of great help for our students, to overcome almost any physical, emotional or psychological difficulty and to achieve and go beyond a bachelor's degree. Thanks to you Dr. Greider! |