Identification and Characterization of Specific Telomere Terminal Transferase, 1987

The central argument of Greider's thesis was to identify the structure and function of RNA component to the telomere in Tetrahymena cell extracts.

It began with the acknowledgements and table of contents section where Greider acknowledged the work of Dr. Bruce Stillman and Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn.

The thesis then transitioned into a general introduction and discussion of telomere research of the past. In the general introduction section Greider gave a comprehensive overview of telomeres and their etymology. It included studies into telomere function, specifically articles from the 1980's and 1990's, as the telomere had been used by previous researchers to describe any structure at the end of any linear DNA. Greider also noted its use in the now famous McClintock study of breakage and fusion of chromosomes. In Greider's time it was also being used to determine telomeric DNA sequences as well as the presence of repetitive sequences.

Overall, Greider work attempted to utilize a dynamic telomere model in order to predict the existence of a novel enzyme, now known as telomerase, which could synthesize telomeric sequnces without a template. Greider had found that the enzyme existed in the organism, Tetrahymena. The second chapter described the initial discovery of the enzyme telomere terminal transferase, or telomerase, from crude extracts of Tetrahymena cells. The third chapter described additional experiments which explained that the enzyme seemed to work independently and seemed to recognize both structure and sequence parameters of the telomere. The fourth chapter discussed evidence supporting this model and alternative models.