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Barbar
Two Line a McClintock:
Ju
Chapter Titlemping Genes
She was born Eleanor McClintock in 1970
1902 in Hartford, Connecticut. Her
family moved to New York in 1908. Year when Barbara
When she wasn’t reading, she was McClintock received the An illustration
playing sports. Her parents changed National Medal of Science of DNA (left) and
her name to Barbara. They thought • McClintock was the first how it can jump.
Eleanor was too feminine for their woman honored with the
daughter. medal.
• She received it from
President Richard Nixon.
• During the award
ceremony, the president
told her he did not she ended up at the Cold Spring McClintock believed that when these
understand her work. Harbor Laboratory in New York. This genes jumped, they turned the DNA
is where she made some of her around them on or off. This was
most important discoveries. a groundbreaking idea. Scientists
did not think DNA could change.
Every living thing is made of cells. McClintock began publishing her
In 1919, McClintock started Cornell Chromosomes live inside cells and findings in the 1940s. In 1983, she
University. She earned both her carry DNA. DNA are instructions that won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or
bachelor’s and master’s degrees in tell cells how to form living things. Medicine.
botany. Botany is the study of plants. These instructions are different for
She received her doctorate in 1927. every organism. That’s why every Scientists today know that jumping
person is unique. genes do not cause DNA to turn on
McClintock studied corn, looking at
or off. Still, McClintock’s findings
its cellular and genetic makeup. She Some DNA can jump from proved that DNA change.
moved to any lab that would let her chromosome to chromosome.
20 keep doing her research. In 1941, These are called jumping genes. She died in 1992. 21
20
