Barbara
McClintock,
was born in 1902 in the United States of America. She is most noted
for the paper that she delivered in 1951 at the Cold Spring Harbor
Symposium for Quantitative Biology, "Chromosome Organization and
Genetic Expression". In this paper, she explained that some genes
appeared to shift their positions on the chromosome in a random way
from one generation to the next. McClintock's conclusions were based
on observation of Indian corn. Her work explained how cells could
differentially change even though they began with the same genetic
material.
In 1944, McClintock delivered a paper entitled, A Correlation of Cytological and Genetic Crossing Over in Zea Mays" to the National Academy of Science. This paper provided the first explanation for inter chromosomal exchange of material and established the foundation for her theory of jumping genes.
McClintock was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology in 1983. During her career she was elected to the National Academy of Science (1944), was the recipient of the National Medal of Science, the Rosenteil Award, and the Kimber Genetics Award (1967). She became a Prize Fellow Laureate of the MacArthur Foundation in 1980.
Barbara McClintock died in 1995.
References
Kass-Simon, G., & Farnes, P. (1990). Women of Science: Righting the Record. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
McGraw-Hill (1980). McGraw-Hill Modern Scientists and Engineers. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Oram, R.G. (1986). Biology Living Systems. Columbus, OH: Merrill.