More to Explore 191
structure on the chromosomes of each ear. Her lab consisted of one powerful microscope,
chemical lab trays, and stacks of journals to record her findings. This work consumed the
long hours of winter.
In the spring she split her time between numerical analysis of the previous year’s data
and field planning and preparation for the next generation of corn plants.
She carefully tracked color mutations, patterns, and changes year after year and discovered that genes are not fixed along chromosomes as everyone thought. Genes could
move. They did move. Some genes seemed able to direct other genes, telling them where to
go and when to act. These genetic directors controlled the movement and action of other
genes that jumped positions on command and then turned on—or turned off—the genes
next to them in their new location.
It sounded like scientific heresy. It contradicted every genetics textbook, every genetics research paper, and the best minds and most advanced research equipment on Earth. At
the end of the 1950 harvest season Barbara debated about releasing her results and finally
decided to wait for one more year’s data.
McClintock presented her research at the 1951 national symposium on genetic research.
Her room had seats for 200. Thirty attended. A few more straggled in during her talk.
She was not asked a single question. Those few left in the room when she finished simply stood up and left.
As so often happens with radically new ideas, Barbara McClintock was simply dismissed by the audience with a bored and indifferent shrug. She was ignored. They couldn’t
understand the implications of what she said.
Feeling both helpless and frustrated, Barbara returned to harvest her cornfield and start
her analysis of the seventh year’s crop.
It took another 25 years for the scientific community to understand the importance of
her discovery.
Fun Facts: Barbara McClintock became the first woman to receive an
unshared Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. When she died in 1992,
one of her obituaries suggested that she might well be ranked as the greatest figure in biology in the twentieth century.
More to Explore
Dash, Joan. The Triumph of Discovery. New York: Simon & Shuster, 1991.
Heiligman, Deborah. Barbara McClintock: Alone in Her Field. New York: W. H.
Freeman, 1998.
Keller, Evelyn. A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara
McClintock. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1993.
Maranto, Gina. “At Long Last—A Nobel for a Loner.” Discover (December 1983): 26.
Opfell, Olga. The Lady Laureates: Women Who Have Won the Nobel Prize. Metuchen,
NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1993.
Shields, Barbara. Winners: Women and the Nobel Prize. Minneapolis, MN: Dillon
Press, 1999.