Carol W. Greider, who shared a Nobel Prize for her work in telomeres and telomerase, will be the first speaker in the new CSU Honors Program Visiting Scholar series.

Greider, director of molecular biology and genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, will speak at 3 p.m. Sept. 14 at the Lory Student Center Theater. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Greider shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 2009 with Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak. She currently directs a group of eight scientists studying the role of short telomeres in age-related disease and cancer as well as the regulatory mechanism that maintains telomere length.

Telomeres are a length of DNA at the end of chromosomes. Understanding their role could hold the key to treating cancer and other diseases.

Telomerase, discovered by Greider and Blackburn in 1984, is an enzyme that preserves the length of telomeres across cell divisions in germ cells, stem cells and tumor cells.

Generous gift from alumnus

The CSU Honors Program Visiting Scholar was established by a gift from CSU alumnus Jack Murray and his wife, Nadine, and is supported by the Murray and Hough families.

Jack Murray was a member of CSU’s first Honors class in 1957. He studied veterinary medicine at CSU before switching to medicine at Baylor University. He had a distinguished career as a cardiologist at the University of Washington.

The University Honors Program currently includes more than 1,550 students, including nearly 400 first-year students.