Carol W. Greider

As a kid, I thought of myself as stupid because I needed remedial help. It was not until much later that I figured out that I was dyslexic and that my trouble with spelling and sounding out words did not mean I was stupid, but early impressions stuck with me and colored my world for a time.

What I found out on Christmas Day 1984, through biochemical evidence, was that telomeres could be lengthened by the enzyme we called telomerase, which keeps the telomeres from wearing down. After I found that out, I went home and put on Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the USA,' which was just out, and I danced and danced and danced.

Some people in the art world bemoan the hedge fund millionaires spending freely to acquire ostentatious displays of wealth and coolth for their giddily chic designer duplexes. Others bemoan art being treated as a commodity. But most of the bemoaning is because the art world is stuffed full of bemoaners, bemoaning about everything.

What do cells do when they see a broken piece of DNA? Cells don't like such breaks. They'll do pretty much anything they can to fix things up. If a chromosome is broken, the cells will repair the break using an intact chromosome.