Barbara McClintock

Eleanor McClintock

1902 - 1992 aged 90

Known for her work on the genetic structure of maize

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1983)

McClintock discovered transposable elements, or "jumping genes", and the process of transposition. She used it to demonstrate that genes are responsible for turning physical characteristics on and off. A great deal of scepticism regarding her research and its implications caused her to stop publishing her data in the 1950s