Barbara McClintock  was an American scientist and cytogeneticist who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Barbara McClintock was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Her father was an army doctor and her mother was a piano teacher. In 1918, she enrolled in Cornell University, the College of Agriculture. In 1919 and from this institution received the B.Sc degree in 1923, the M.A. in 1925, and the Ph.D. in 1927. In 1950, Dr. McClintock first reported in a scientific journal that genetic information could transpose from one chromosome to another. Many scientists during that time assumed that this unconventional view of genes was unusual to the corn plant and was not universally applicable to all organisms. They were of the view that genes generally were held in place in the chromosome like a necklace of beads. 

The importance of her research was not realized until the 1960s, when Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod discovered controlling elements in bacteria similar to those McClintock found in corn and in 1983 McClintok received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of mobile genetic elements. 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.He received the National Medal Of Science in 1970. McClintock died in Huntington, New York, on September 2, 1992.