Barbara McClintock (1902–92) was an American geneticist. Winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, she discovered transposable genetic elements in 1951, which were later confirmed by Watson and Crick’s DNA representation.
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, McClintock received a PhD in botany from Cornell University, where she worked 1927–35. Later she held appointments at the University of Missouri (1936–41) and Cold Spring Harbor (1941–92.)
McClintock’s investigation on maize cytogenetics and the maize’s chromosomes provided the ultimate proof of the chromosome theory of heredity. She demonstrated various theoretical concepts, such as genetic recombination by meiosis and centromere and telomeres’ roles. In the 1940s, she explained how genes could regulate other genes, copy from chromosome to chromosome, and mutate in pigmentation or other characteristics. Her work was not recognized until the 1970s.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Evelyn Fox Keller wrote the biography A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock (1983.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Barbara McClintock
I’ve just been so interested in what I was doing [genetic research] that I never thought of stopping.
—Barbara McClintock
Topics: Enthusiasm
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