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Barbara McClintock

Barbara McClintock (1902-1992) was an American cytogeneticist who discovered transposable genetic elements or "jumping genes" while performing research on maize. McClintock was known as a maverick in the field of biology, often taking unorthodox views on the mechanisms of evolution, genetic regulation and development.

Though McClintock’s discovery of genetic transposition occurred between the 1920’s and 1950’s, her radical ideas were not well received by a scientific community that had spent the last fifty years ridding biology of every last vestige of teleology and vitalism. Indeed, her thesis that transposition served as an adaptive survival mechanism available to the organism in times of stress was too tied up teleological language to be taken seriously. In 1983, however, her achievement was recognized when she bacame the first woman to receive an unshared Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

When Barbara McClintock died in 1992, one of her obituaries suggested that she might well be ranked as the greatest figure in biology in the 20th century.

Web Resources On Barbara McClintock

Profiles in Science: Barbara McClintock
Pioneer of Micro-Cellular Directed Genetics

Book Resources On Barbara McClintock

The Dynamic Genome: Barbara McClintock by Nina Fedoroff, David Botstein, eds.
A Feeling for the Organism by Evelyn Fox Keller

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