Greider acknowledged the award was a triumph for women in science and said she hopes it opens the door for future winners.
"I think the number of women in science doing high-powered research is quite remarkable," she said. "But the total number of Nobel Prizes going to women has sort of lagged behind."
Awake with time to kill before her morning spin class on Monday, Greider was folding the laundry when the call came from the chair of the Nobel committee notifying her of the honor.
The typically poised Greider said she was shocked. She then made a joke about the committee giving her 45 minutes to prepare before the announcement became formal - enough time to take a shower. "I was glad for those extra 45 minutes," she said.
Soon after, Greider woke up her children, Gwendolyn Comfort, 9, and Charles Comfort, 13, who were elated. "My mom was shaking me, saying 'I won the Nobel Prize!' and I was like, whoa!" said Gwendolyn, who scribbled notes throughout the news conference as a keepsake.
Then the phone started ringing and it didn't stop for three hours, with congratulations pouring in from all over. Neighbors in the family's Roland Park community were stopping by to offer their good wishes. One even erected a giant congratulatory banner across their home's front porch, which was outfitted with balloons.
Greider accepted the accolades in her trademark self-effacing manner. She said the honor is a tribute to the entire telomere field, not simply her work.
"The discovery of telomerase was an important discovery at the time, but it's really the subsequent implications of what it has to do with disease that really makes this day possible," she said. "I'm indebted to all the people in my lab as well as all the many laboratories in the world who have made these discoveries."
While the science behind it is complex, Greider says the finding was sparked by something quite simple: scientific curiosity.
"Simply by going into the lab and being curious about this very fundamental question, we made the discovery that there is this enzyme telomerase that maintains these chromosome ends," she said. "I consider myself very fortunate to have had the opportunity to really play and be able to do science and just follow what was the most interesting thing to do."
