Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Long Island's Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is one of the country's leading research labs. The lab has produced numerous Nobel Prize winners, including Barbara McClintock. A native of Connecticut, McClintock earned a B.S., a master's, and a Ph.D. from Cornell University. She completed the latter in 1927, specializing in cytology, genetics, and biology. It was a time when there were few women in science, and McClintock found that opportunities for women--even when well-educated--were rare and discrimination and condescension were common. While working on her doctorate, McClintock began the work to which she would devote most of her life--the chromosomal analysis of maize.

McClintock was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study in Germany in 1933, but her studies there were cut short because of the rise of Nazism. When she returned to the United States, she was disappointed to learn that Cornell, her alma mater, would not hire a female professor. She worked briefly at the University of Missouri before coming to Cold Spring Harbor in 1941.

At Cold Spring Harbor, McClintock began studying mutations in kernels of maize. She had previously developed a method of using a microscope and a staining method which allowed her to identify individual chromosomes in corn. She continued this method at Cold Spring Harbor, tracing pigmentation changes in corn and using a microscope to examine the plant's large chromosomes. Through this method, she was able to identifiy two large genes that she called "controlling elements," as they controlled the genes which were actually responsible for pigmentation. Her research revealed that the controlling elements could move to different points on the chromosome and that those movements would alter the behavior of nearby genes. These transposable elements were responsible for changes in pigmentation and other characteristics. McClintock published her findings on transposable elements in 1953, a time when the field of genetics was still in its infancy. Her findings were met with skepticism and she was disappointed with the lack of support she received from her colleagues, most of whom were men. As a result, she was reluctant to present her research at conferences and became something of a recluse in the scientific community.

Though she was a private figure who rarely published or presented her work, she continued her research in the coming decades. Many in the scientific community considered her work radical or just dismissed it altogether. It was only in the late 1960s and 1970s, with the discovery of DNA, that her work from years earlier began to gain the respect that it deserved. As new findings confirmed her earlier work, she began to receive the accolades which had eluded her earlier in her career. President Nixon awarded her the National Medal of Science, making her the first woman to receive the honor. In 1983, she was awarded the Nobel Prize, becoming the first woman to win an unshared Nobel Prize. McClintock continued working at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory until her death in 1992.

Barbara McClintock (1902-1992), National Science Foundation . Accessed May 8th 2021. https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/medalofscience50/mcclintock.jsp.

Women's History Month--Barbara McClintock , Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory . Accessed May 8th 2021. http://library.cshl.edu/personal-collections/kitty-brehme/95-news/archive-news/410-women-s-history-month-barbara-mcclintock.

About Us, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory . Accessed May 8th 2021. https://www.cshl.edu/about-us/.