Barbara McClintock

Barbara McClintock was an American scientist and cytogeneticist who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. McClintock received her PhD in botany from Cornell University in 1927. There she started her career as the leader in the development of maize cytogenetics, the focus of her research for the rest of her life. From the late 1920s, McClintock studied chromosomes and how they change during reproduction in maize. She developed the technique for visualizing maize chromosomes and used microscopic analysis to demonstrate many fundamental genetic ideas. One of those ideas was the notion of genetic recombination by crossingover during meiosisa mechanism by which chromosomes exchange information. She produced the first genetic map for maize, linking regions of the chromosome to physical traits. She demonstrated the role of the telomere and centromere, regions of the chromosome that are important in the conservation of genetic information. She was recognized among the be

Barbara McClintock was born Eleanor McClintock on June 16, 1902 in Hartford, Connecticut, the third of four children born to physician Thomas Henry McClintock and Sara Handy McClintock. Thomas McClintock was the child of British immigrants, and Sara Handy, born Grace, descended from an old American Mayflower family. Marjorie, the oldest child, was born in October 1898 Mignon, the second daughter, was born in November 1900. The youngest, Malcolm Rider , was bornmonths after Barbara. As a young girl, her parents determined that Eleanor, a feminine and delicate name, was not appropriate for her, and chose Barbara instead. McClintock was an independent child beginning at a very young age, a trait she later identified as her capacity to be alone. From the age of three until she began school, McClintock lived with an aunt and uncle in Brooklyn, New York in order to reduce the financial burden on her parents while her father established his medical practice. She was described as a solitar

Source: Wikipedia