Barbara McClintock
(1902-1992)
Barbara McClintock was an American scientist and cytogeneticist who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
One of her ideas was the notion of genetic recombination by crossing-over during meiosis—a mechanism by which chromosomes exchange information. She demonstrated the role of the telomere and centromere, regions of the chromosome that are important in the conservation of genetic information.
During the 1940s and 1950s, McClintock discovered transposons and used it to demonstrate that genes are responsible for turning physical characteristics on and off. She developed theories to explain the suppression and expression of genetic information from one generation of maize plants to the next.
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