Dr. Barbara McClintock
Dr. Barbara McClintock was awarded the Nobel prize for Medicine in 1983 for her discovery of "mobile genetic elements".
Dr. McClintock's life and scientifc contributions span the history of modern genetics. Barbara McClintock was born in 1902 in Hartford, Connecticut. Her scientific career began twenty years after the rediscovery of Mendel's priniciples of heredity and it ended with her death in 1992.
Her career path was set early as an undergraduate at Cornell Unversity. In her own words:
"By the time of graduation, I had no doubts about the direction I wished to follow for an advanced degree. It would involve chromosomes and their genetic content and expression, in short, cytogenetics. This field had just begun to reveal its potentials. I have pursued it ever since and with as much pleasure over the years as I had experienced in my undergraduate days." (from the Autobiography of Dr. McClintock).In the 1920s, she worked at Cornell University under Rollins Emerson and began her first work on maize cytogenetics. After obtaining her Ph.D., McClintock worked with Harriet Creighton and together they demonstrated that genetic crossing over was accompanied by physical crossing over of the chromosomes. She later worked in collaboration with Lewis Stadler at the University of Missouri on the mutagenic effects of X rays on corn. Using this system McClintock identified ring chromosomes. Based on this work McClintock hypothesized the existence of a special structure at the chromosome tip, which she called the telomere, that would maintain chromosome stability. These studies continued as she moved from the California Institute of Technology, to Germany, and to the University of Missouri. Finally in 1942, she joined the Carnegie Institution of Washington at Cold Spring Harbor.
It is after she moved to Cold Spring Harbor, where she made the discovery that there were genetic elements capable of moving within the genome and controlling expression of other genes. The 1951 C.S.H.L. Symposia was the first public presentation of her data in support of transposable elements. The first reaction to these findings was incomprehension or indifference at best, dismissive at worst.
"Some listeners scoffed incredulously. Others grew angry. The upset of time-honored genetical dogmas was simply too great to be stomached." (from Symposium XVI (1951): Session I: Theory of the Gene).The subsequent discovery of transposable elements in other organisms and the isolation and molecular characterization of the elements led to the acceptance of transposable elements. The discovery of mobile genetic elements was of profound importance for our understanding of the organization and function of genes. And for this work she was awarded the Nobel prize in 1983.
Click here to access Dr. McClintock's bibliography and C.V..
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