SPOTLIGHT ON Cytogeneticist

 Cytogeneticist - a geneticist who specializes in the cellular components associated with heredity. Cytogenetics is a branch of genetics that is concerned with the study of the structure and function of the cell, especially the chromosomes  1923 – B.S. Biology Cornell University, followed by an M.S. in 1925  1927 – Ph.D. Cytology, genetics, and zoology. During graduate school she began the work that would occupy her entire professional life: the chromosomal analysis of corn (maize).  1931 – McClintock and Harriet Creighton publish “A Correlation of Cytological and Genetical Crossing-over in Zea mays,” a paper that established that chromosomes formed the basis of genetics.  1934 – 36 - McClintock does research at Cornell funded by The Rockefeller Foundation  1936– Continues research at University of Missouri  McClintock was elected vice president of the Genetics Society of America in 1939 and president of the Genetics Society in 1944.

 McClintock moved to Long Island, New York, to work at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where she spends the rest of her professional life, observing and experimenting with variations in the coloration of kernels of corn.  She discovered that genetic information is not stationary, that the genes could move along the chromosome and suggested that these transposable elements were responsible for new mutations in pigmentation or other characteristics.  Not until the late 1960s and ’70s, after biologists had determined that the genetic material was DNA, did members of the scientific community begin to verify her early findings. When recognition finally came, McClintock was inundated with awards and honours, most notably the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. She was the first woman to be the sole winner of this award.  McClintock spent her later years, post Nobel Prize, as a key leader and researcher in the field at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York.

Genetic transposition, or the ability of genes to change position on the chromosome

Her work has been of high value assisting in the understanding of human disease. “Jumping genes” help explain how bacteria are able to build up resistance to an antibiotic and there is some indication that jumping genes are involved in the alteration of normal cells to cancerous cells.

 Achievement Award, American Association of University Women  Elected a Fellow - American Academy of Arts and Sciences  Kimber Genetics Award, National Academy of Science  1970 – First woman to receive the National Medal of Science  Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory named a building in her honor  Louis and Bert Freedman Foundation Award and the Lewis S. Rosensteil Award  Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal, Genetics Society of America  Honorary Member, The Society for Developmental Biology  Wolf Prize in Medicine  Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award  MacArthur Prize Fellow Laureate  Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize for Biology from Columbia University

 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. First woman to win that prize unshared for discovering "mobile genetic elements”. It was more than 30 years after she initially described the phenomenon of controlling elements. She was compared to Gregor Mendel in terms of her scientific career by the Swedish Academy of Sciences when she was awarded the prize  Inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame  Elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society  Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences of the American Philosophical Society  Awarded 14 Honorary Doctor of Science degrees and an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters

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