“Barbara McClintock was born June 16, 1902, in Hartford, Connecticut, she was one of four children of Thomas Henry McClintock and Sara Handy McClintock. Her family moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1908. After she moved she graduated from Erasmus Hall High School in 1919. Barbara did extremely well in school and ended up earning her B.S. and M.S. degrees in botany at Cornell University, and received her Ph.D. in the same subject at Cornell in 1927. Although women were not always permitted to major in genetics at Cornell, McClintock became a highly influential member of a small group, who studied maize (corn) cytogenetics.
McClintock went back to Cornell for several more years until, in 1936, she gladly accepted a position as an assistant professor at the University of Missouri at Columbia. By 1940, however, she believed that she would not gain tenure at Missouri, and quickly left her job. In December 1941, she was offered a one-year research …show more content…
Beginning in the late 1920s, she studied how genes in chromosomes could "move" during the breeding of maize plants. She did groundbreaking research on this phenomenon, where she determined the physical correlate of genetic crossing-over. Later, during the 1940s and 1950s, McClintock showed how certain genes were responsible for turning on or off physical characteristics, such as the color of leaves or individual corn kernels. She developed theories to explain the suppression or expression of genetic information from one generation of maize plants to the next that defied the common wisdom of molecular biology prevalent during the 1950s. After encountering some skepticism about her research and its implications, she refrained from publishing her data in professional journals and only shared her research with a small circle of loyal
McClintock went back to Cornell for several more years until, in 1936, she gladly accepted a position as an assistant professor at the University of Missouri at Columbia. By 1940, however, she believed that she would not gain tenure at Missouri, and quickly left her job. In December 1941, she was offered a one-year research …show more content…
Beginning in the late 1920s, she studied how genes in chromosomes could "move" during the breeding of maize plants. She did groundbreaking research on this phenomenon, where she determined the physical correlate of genetic crossing-over. Later, during the 1940s and 1950s, McClintock showed how certain genes were responsible for turning on or off physical characteristics, such as the color of leaves or individual corn kernels. She developed theories to explain the suppression or expression of genetic information from one generation of maize plants to the next that defied the common wisdom of molecular biology prevalent during the 1950s. After encountering some skepticism about her research and its implications, she refrained from publishing her data in professional journals and only shared her research with a small circle of loyal